Thanks, he came out of this race looking good today, bouncing around and shining like a copper penny, so the Preakness could be a great race Thank you, eventually my luck will run out! Mendelssohn got 'mugged' as they say in racing, whenever you have speed horses in the auxiliary gate they tend to cut across looking to save ground and for some reason Ryan Moore didn't seem prepared for that, its a shame but that's racing, European jockeys are not known to be great gate-riders, whereas Mike Smith is one of the best. Here's the race sequence for anyone interested https://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/features/2018-kentucky-derby-race-sequence-227411
https://www.reviewjournal.com/sports/betting/las-vegas-bettor-wins-150k-on-500-kentucky-derby-futures-wager/
A deep closer he has that come-from-behind running style, as does My Boy Jack who closed from last-but-one. Meanwhile Bafferts says its all systems go for Big Red for the Preakness: https://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/articles/227427/baffert-reports-justify-looks-great-for-preakness Image Unavailable, Please Login
He looked pretty darn good. He has a good chance depending on who shows up at Belmont. What are you thinking, Joe?
I just hope they get good weather for a change. I'd bet the people in the grandstands yesterday could not see the horses on the backstretch. If the Belmont gets the same sort of miserable weather, they ought to dub this year's series the Sloppy Crown!
Considering he is running against one of the best crop of 3-year-olds in years, he is pretty special, in any other year I'd say he'd win the TC easily, this year I'll say he has to train well the next 3 weeks and of course stay injury-free. Is he capable of doing it? Yes.
I don't think Justify will do too well at the Belmont. If he was running out of gas at the end of the Preakness, he won't do well at the Belmont, which is a lot longer.
Yeah, but that could have been due in part to the sloppy track. It may depend on whether his opposition is fresher than he is, i.e. horses that didn't run in the first two races.
Don't read anything into the way it looked at the end of the Preakness, unless he is injured or comes down with a fever or something he'll get the 1.5 mile distance of the Belmont easily, he gallops that distance in the morning and impresses. Atrocious conditions aside, everything went wrong in the Preakness, yet he won, and was only being caught at the end because Mike was gearing him down saving up for the big one. Firstly, he almost blew the start and got off a step behind, but then Mike hustled him up to the front, then, the hopeless track attendants at Pimlico left the tram tracks in the track at the start-finish line so as they went round the first time he JUMPED them! See pic below, pretty dangerous, horses could have fallen, smart horse Justify, he's so athletic he was protecting himself, but, that got him off his rhythm and went to sliding all the way round the Clubhouse turn, per Mike Smith. He only finally found his footing down the backstretch, so the fact that he put it together is amazing because momentum is everything for 1,200 lbs racehorses. Good Magic ran the race of his life and Justify just put him away. I saw what I needed to see. Also, consider these statistics: Winning margins in the Preakness do not reflect what will happen in the Belmont. Secretariat won the Preakness by 2 1/2 lengths and the Belmont by 31. Risen Star won the Preakness by 1 1/4 lengths and the Belmont by 14. Point Given won the Preakness by 2 1/4 lengths and the Belmont by 12 1/4. At the other end of the spectrum, Smarty Jones and Funny Cide won the Preakness by record margins of 11 and 9 3/4 lengths, respectively, and both lost the Belmont. Basically, I wouldn't worry about it, lots of great horses haven't looked that good in the Preakness but have shone in the Belmont, if he's healthy he wins the TC Image Unavailable, Please Login
True that! My uncles were inveterate punters, so I saw that live on TV. The house vacillated between bedlam and stunned silence. Even my uncles, who claimed to have seen everything or that everything was better back in the day, couldn't come up with a comparable. Great memories! Let's go Justify! T
is there a better picture jumping the tracks, I see Justify jumping, but don't see the tracks. that's crazy!
Best I can do is this one below, if you look carefully you can see the tracks in the mud, they are pretty deep. It's insane, leaving the tracks in place in any stakes race, never mind a Triple Crown race, it's borderline negligence, chief track superintendant should be fired, Justify could have been injured by his jumping, or worse, horses could have gone down. Watching the race I saw him jump and I said to my wife "OMG he broke stride", initially I thought he got spooked by someone with a camera at the start-finish line as they let people stand pretty close at Pimlico. But how cool is that Mike Smith? That's what 30-plus years in the saddle brings. You'd best believe the jump changed how Mikey rode the colt in the late stages of the race, he asked Justify to pass Good Magic down the lane, but once he put him away, you can see Mike how sat chilly on Justify. Mike said he saw Bravazo coming flying late, but he was confident he had the wire and didn't want to ask Justify any more. That's timing experience, if Justify shines in the Belmont you gan give Mike some credit. Let's hope Big Red stays healthy, and he has a good clean trip in the Belmont. Triple Crowns are not just good for the sport, they are uplifting for everybody Image Unavailable, Please Login
Yep, I remember it well also. I think the greatest horse ever, some folks may argue Man O' War, but who really knows?
Indeed, but let's remember, even the great Secretariat was beaten by Angle Light, Onion and Prove Out in 3 separate races that same Triple Crown winning year. So many things can go wrong, Justify has to be 100% on his A-game on Belmont day, he has to break from the gate sharply as he likes to control the pace, he has to have an ideal pace setup, and then he can show what he can do. The point is, all the stars have to align
Meanwhile, here is a May 25th update: What Justify’s connections are saying as of today after he worked well on the track. Trainer’s Assistant Jimmy Barnes: "The horse does run in the mud well, but you ought to see him on a dry track." Co-Owner Jack Wolfe: "I was talking to Mike Smith after the race and he was commenting on how he eased the horse up at the end. I asked him if he could feel the other horse (Bravazo) closing, and he said he could feel him but didn't feel he was in any danger of losing. According to Mike, he thinks this last race (Preakness) will really help prepare him to run a good race at the Belmont." This neat image below of Bob Baffert & Justify taken this week shows the horse looking right into the lens of the camera Image Unavailable, Please Login
I don't think that any of the other horses in the Belmont raced in either of the preceding Triple Crown races. Considering the Belmont's length, would facing a field of potentially fresher horses be a problem for Justify? At least the track conditions should be much better than for the first two legs!
Going by his final 2 works this week, I don't think anything will make any difference if a happy & healthy Justify shows up and he breaks alertly, however, it'll take just @ 2.5 minutes to find out
The horse looked totally unfazed by what was going on around him, like he was just out for a Sunday jaunt, and the fact that there were 9 other horses behind him didn't seem to matter at all. Congrats to Mike Smith, Bob Baffert, and all others concerned.
He broke from from the gate like a quarter horse, Mike knew right then. Totally controlled the pace, wire-to-wire, won easy. Still undefeated. A second Triple Crown for Baffert, the first for perhaps one of the most deserving men in the sport, Mike Smith, I've followed him for decades, such an inspiration. Wow, today was a great day, glad I could share it with my family. Triple!
