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| Justify |
Justify has been a perfectly reasonable winner of both the Derby and Preakness. He ran well in both races and is obviously talented - you don't win Grade 1 races in your 3rd, 4th and 5th starts if you're not. Like American Pharoah, he has good natural speed, but isn't a pure speedball. His speed figures have been impressive especially relative to the class: he sports 4 of the 10 fastest speed figures for a 3 year old this year, including #1 (his Santa Anita Derby), #3 (his maiden race) and #5 (the Kentucky Derby). So far, he's clearly the best horse in this class.
It's also clear that the Preakness was his worst race. It was slow and unimpressive on paper and visually. He put away pesky foe Good Magic to then almost blow it to Bravazo, who is nobody's idea of Easy Goer. And it was by far his slowest time. This may not be a surprise: it was his 5th race in 3 1/2 months, and his second in two weeks. That's fine and good, except that the Belmont now makes it 6 races in under 4 months, and his 4th race in less than 10 weeks. That's a lot for any horse to take, let alone one with no prior foundation, and possible distance limitations.
We are also waiting for Justify to face some sort of adversity during a race. Sure, Promises Fulfilled made him run fast early in the Derby. But Justify remained to his outside at all times and never got dirt in his face. Several of his obvious challengers in the Derby were eliminated before the first turn and never had a shot. The Preakness field was blah besides Good Magic. He's never had traffic trouble, a bad start, a wide trip, or anything other than needing to hold on to a lead after running fast. And sure, good horses make their luck and good trips - that was American Pharoah's secret weapon. We're just skeptical that Justify can do it for the sixth straight time at a new track going 2 furlongs than he's ever gone before. We're not rooting against him. But we're not automatically picking him because he's 5-for-5 and the favorite.
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So who can beat Justify?
One of the last places you should look for a Belmont winner, amazingly, is the Preakness. Since Victory Gallop turned the tables on Real Quiet in 1998, we haven't had a horse lose in the Preakness and come back and win the Belmont. Of the 54 horses to run in both races since then, three repeated: a Triple Crown winner (American Pharoah), a Hall of Famer (Point Given), and a borderline Hall of Famer (Afleet Alex). The record for the other 51 starts is dreadful: no wins and 12 in the money finishes. And even that's underselling the badness of Preakness losers, as 5 of those 12 to finish in the money were Preakness winners who didn't repeat (TC busts Charismatic, Funny Cide, and Smarty Jones, plus Curlin and Oxbow). Only 5 horses have run better in the Belmont than they did in the Preakness (by order of finish): Luv Gov's crappy 5th in 2009, clunk-up 3rds by Orb, Monarchos and Lani, and Medaglia d'Oro's excellent second in 2002.
So we're against both Bravazo and Tenfold to buck the trend. Both had a real chance to beat Justify in the Preakness, both failed. We don't see either taking a necessary step forward unless switching to a dry track makes a large difference (and that's assuming it's a dry track, which is not a fair assumption as of press time). Both horses will get bet, and our money will go elsewhere.
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| Larry Collmus' view from above |
We have a hard time believing that Bob Baffert would run a real competitor from his barn against Justify - if he was, we think we'd see Ax Man here, who looked great on the Preakness undercard. So we're going to discount the chances of Restoring Hope pulling off an intra-barn upset. Also, it's tough to like a horse that's done nothing besides win a maiden race and ran a GSF of 50 last time out.
Noble Indy strikes us as an unlikely winner but he does have enough early speed to keep Justify honest. The question is whether he'll actually do so: he's trained by Todd Pletcher, but is partly owned by WinStar Farms, who also owns Justify. Would WinStar really enter a horse that could tire out their own champion? You know what, let's put a pin in this and come back to it.
Free Drop Billy is highly unlikely to win but has a shot to hit the board at a huge price. He's an even-paced grinder that is well-bred for 12 furlongs and Dale Romans remains the most underappreciated trainer in horse racing. Horses that are even-paced often clunk up for 2nd or 3rd in the Belmont at a price without really ever having a chance to win - think of Keen Ice in '15 (also trained by Romans), Atigun in '12, Ready's Echo in '08, Andromeda's Hero and Nolan's Cat in '05, and Royal Assault in '04. (Hell, Drosselmeyer pretty much won the race this way in 2010.) He's got a shot to finish third without actually being within 10 lengths of the winner simply by outlasting the competition.
Finally, we're taking a pass on Blended Citizen, who did win the Peter Pan last out, but did so barely beating a horse that Justify throttled in California. Justify would have to significantly regress to make this guy competitive, and even if he did, there are other horses who figure to capitalize better than Blended Citizen. He'll just have to hang on to the trophy from the Jeff Ruby Steaks as consolation.
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On to the real contenders to win. Hofburg is likely going to be the second choice in the Belmont, which is both logical and bizarre. We tapped him as a sleeper in the Derby and he ran a okay 7th: neither great nor a disaster. (Some are saying his trip was a disaster; it wasn't great, but at best, it cost him finishing 4th.) Unlike a lot of other horses in the field, he has the potential to improve, as he's making his 5th start, and he's bred to get 12 furlongs. But he's still winless outside of maiden races, and his coup de grace so far is a non-threatening second to Audible in the Florida Derby. We would not be surprised to see him move forward and win the Belmont - as we've said, Juddmonte and Mott don't enter these races for kicks - but we would also be unsurprised if he did very little and finished 7th. We seem him as a horse that is going to be underbet relative to his chances, and are siding against.
Which leaves Vino Rosso, who won the Wood Memorial then ran a completely indifferent 9th in the Derby. He's also bred to get 12 furlongs, and skipped the Preakness, which has been the most common path to success in the modern Belmont. He's trained by Todd Pletcher, who's won 3 of these - including 2 in the last 5 years by running in the Derby and skipping the Preakness - and gets 2-time Belmont winner John Velazquez as his jockey. He's a closer, but not a dead closer that needs to thread his way through the entire field to win the race. This means he won't get fried if there's a pace up front, and while he needs some racing luck, he's not going to be completely at the mercy of the racing gods.
As to that pace...his owner is Mike Repole, who has been extremely successful in racing, but has never won the Belmont. Repole has said time and time again that the Belmont is his white whale: he's a New Yorker, and wants to win this race yesterday. Critically, this isn't his only shot in the race: Repole is the co-owner of Noble Indy. Which is why we think Pletcher is running Noble Indy despite WinStar's common ownership interest with Justify - Noble Indy can keep Justify honest early, and pave the way for Vino Rosso to close into a contested pace. Sure, doing that would defeat a Triple Crown. We don't think Repole cares, especially since we're no longer dealing with a 35+ year drought between Triple Crown wins that would make him the villain. In fact, we'll go so far as to guess that Repole would rejoice in taking down Baffert and playing the spoiler, and frankly, that Pletcher wouldn't mind either.
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| Mike Repole and Todd Pletcher |
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At the end of the day, we are having a tough time seeing Justify as the 13th horse to win the Triple Crown. We're not denying the talent, and his recent works have impressed us, and maybe he is just a freak. But we can't get out of our head the fact that Baffert admitted that he initially thought that Justify was a sprinter. Yes, some horses have been great at all distances between 6 and 12 furlongs. But we are very reticent to say Justify is the next Ghostzapper, let alone Forego.
To us, Justify has a lot in common with Smarty Jones - great ability to get in tactical position, a high cruising speed, and the ability to dominate a race at up to 9 furlongs. Beyond 9 furlongs? Then it gets dicey, and the horse has to rely on class and luck. This won him the Derby, but as we saw in the Preakness, getting that 10th furlong is not his best game. We don't think the 11th and 12th furlongs are going to be his friend either, especially if Noble Indy makes him work early. We think he gets to the front, is badgered early by Noble Indy (and maybe others as well), shakes them off, gets to the top of the stretch with a lead and the crowd roaring, but gets passed by Vino Rosso before the 8th pole, giving him his first career defeat.
To us, Justify has a lot in common with Smarty Jones - great ability to get in tactical position, a high cruising speed, and the ability to dominate a race at up to 9 furlongs. Beyond 9 furlongs? Then it gets dicey, and the horse has to rely on class and luck. This won him the Derby, but as we saw in the Preakness, getting that 10th furlong is not his best game. We don't think the 11th and 12th furlongs are going to be his friend either, especially if Noble Indy makes him work early. We think he gets to the front, is badgered early by Noble Indy (and maybe others as well), shakes them off, gets to the top of the stretch with a lead and the crowd roaring, but gets passed by Vino Rosso before the 8th pole, giving him his first career defeat.
2. Justify
3. Free Drop Billy
Good luck and enjoy the Belmont!!
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