@findeight , thank you for the explanation. Will we know what happened, or is there no obligation to disclose if there was an injury vs. a bad run?
That was one of the best races I have ever seen and I couldn’t even see most of it! Justify literally jogged the entire way back to the stakes barn from the test barn so the reports of him being spent are unfounded.
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Not as visually impressive as the Derby, but I did notice that Mike wasn’t really pushing on him at the end, even though they were coming at them. Given the duel and the slop, I think this race was harder on him than the others, but I don’t think he was totally empty and out of gas at the end, and I think he might well run a better race at Belmont. Whether it will be better enough remains to be seen, but I’m rooting for him.
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I do not believe there is any obligation to report why a horse didn’t finish well or at all in a race unless the connections want to.
In a big race, many of the different outlets (BH, Paulick Report, etc) may include info on the state of the finishers but no guarantee.
Yes I mixed them up – between my tiny phone screen and my challenging new progressive lenses I’m struggling…
Two plain bays not expected to be coming as hard as they did in this race. And the dam slop and fog, I’m surprised the race caller kept the two blaze faces in front straight…if it wasn’t for the neon green silks on the 5 and the considerable size difference when side by side, don’t know anybody could. And, note to tracks, the dark saddle cloths with the what looked like darkish orange numbers? Not a good choice visibility wise, whatever happened to black numbers on a white cloth.
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Some of the comments (here and elsewhere) questioning Justify’s ability make it seem like he ran poorly. He ran a match race against a horse who might be the second best 3 year old in America through a swamp for about a mile. And hung on for the win. Don’t know if he will get the Belmont, but d*** he was game.
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Probably because those colors are associated with the Preakness 
If I had to guess…
You can’t run poorly and win a G1.
He does not look like a horse that will stretch out and go 1 1/2 and win against G1 competition 3 weeks from now. He looked great through the Derby, but barely hung on for the win in the Preakness on a track with a huge speed bias. The race totally set up for his style of running. He’s had a tough 3 months and these races take a toll. You have a few colts with classic distance pedigrees who look like they are really coming around, and they managed to close the gap on Justify on a track where no one closed all weekend. As good as he is, you have to let them recover, and with the next race in 3 weeks, he may not be where he needs to be physically to run his best race. It’s not uncommon for a heavy favorite to simply come up empty with no apparent excuse. I do like Justify, but it’s a good group of colts this year, and there are some who are very talented and just need a tiny crack in the armour to defeat him. That’s horse racing.
He’s got guts that’s for sure. Another quarter mile will sort it out, but he had more to give. Each of his races he has won by smaller margins but I think he’s getting smart. His jockey is learning what he’s got and he just steadied him the last five strides while the rest of America was afraid Bravazo was going to snatch it from him
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I remember a few years that in a race, even the Preakness a few times, a horse really put on a show, with a brilliant, open lengths, awesome win, and then lost the next race, and everybody was very quick to criticize the jockey for burning up unnecessary energy in that previous big win. I definitely thought Mike was saving some at the end, and I thought that was smart, especially after a hard race on a sloppy track.
To me, the fact that Justify basically was in a match race from the git go is more important than how far his winning margin was. To this point, his races had seemed loping around, easy, things all his own way. He’d never been in a battle. Yesterday, he was, and he was not found wanting. Check off that box. He can fight for it. Nothing lacking on the gut check.
I don’t know if he’ll get the Belmont. We’ll see. But I’m more impressed with him as a racehorse today than I was after the Derby.
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I don’t know that I’d agree with this comment that Mike was saving something at the end… I think the “match race” with Good Magic took something out of Justify and Mike didn’t have a lot of horse left at the end. Enough to hold on and win but not as easy as some of his previous races.
From the [URL=“https://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/articles/227633/justify-emerges-from-the-fog-to-win-preakness”]BH article
Smith said he saw Bravazo closing on the outside but felt the wire would come in time.
“I looked over with about a hundred yards to go and saw him on the outside, but the wire was coming up pretty quick, and I felt we had him at bay,” Smith said.
[URL=“https://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/articles/227633/justify-emerges-from-the-fog-to-win-preakness”]
Smith, as the pilot, shed the most light on Justify’s trip around Pimlico in front of an announced crowd of 134,487.
“(He) jumped (out of the gate) extremely well, and I was really happy he did that,” the rider said. “(I was) a little bit concerned going around the first turn. He jumped the tracks right past the wire, where they roll the things out, and when he did, he really got to slipping. After we straightened up down the backside, he got back underneath himself. I felt very good. I looked over, and I looked to my inside and saw it was Good Magic. I said, ‘Oh, man. It’s going to be a match race from this point on.’”
The rider also indicated Justify got “tired” and may have waited on the field once he got in the clear.
“Although he got tired today, he was also looking around a bit at the end,” Smith said. “A bit of greenness came out today, but he also got pushed pretty hard early on.”
Every track uses the same colors saddle towels for each post position. Red for one, white for two, blue for three etc. All the numbers were white except the two which is black because obviously you couldn’t see a white number on a white cloth.
It still definitely looks to me watching that race like Mike was not really setting Justify down and asking him there at the finish. He used the whip a bit to shake loose of Good Magic earlier at the top of the stretch, but at the end, it looks like he decided not to go to a full drive or demand every ounce, even with the others coming, knowing that he had the race won anyway.
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MS has stated as much in his recent post Preakness interview.
Said he had wrapped him up a bit, as he never expected Bravazo & Tenfold to come so hard & fast.
Having nothing really to do with winning the Preakness but a pretty cool article in the BH on all the changes NBC, particularly the production truck, had to make to broadcast as much of the race as possible in that fog
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We learned on FB that a friend of ours is flying Justify!
Pilot took me up in a small single engine plane during crosswinds of 40+ MPH almost 20 years ago. It was a blast. One of the old farts watching our landing told my DH, who was also watching, “Now, he’s either really good, or really stupid.” DH assured old fart that he (pilot) really was that good. It was a smooth, but exhilarating, landing. (And pilot wasn’t even old enough to buy a beer at that time!)
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Good article. The product really seemed pretty seamless, and the guy who called the race relied on those shots.
Thank goodness there were no inquiries - wonder what the stewards would have done with such limited footage!
That, yes, would have been interesting for sure.
Larry Collmus did a fantastic job of race calling given he was using the same TV shots we were since heaven knows he couldn’t see what was happening out on the track even with the best of binoculars
Justify out on the track at Louisville today and reported looked good.
Justify’s connections are noodling if they want to also send out Audible for the Belmont (the same group of owners own both Justify and Audible).
Sounds like both Bravazo and Tenfold are strong possibilities for the Belmont.
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