Page 52 - summer18

Justifiable! Racing

gets 13th Triple
Crown with Justify

Bob Baffert ’77 has become

the second trainer in horse
racing history to win the Triple
Crown twice.
by Beth Harris, AP Racing Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Justify defied all
the odds on his way to achieving Triple
Crown immortality.
The late bloomer won the Belmont
Stakes by 1¾ lengths in June, giving the
sport its 13th Triple Crown champion.
American Pharoah ended a 37-year
drought in 2015 and now, just three years
later, racing is celebrating another sweep
of the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and
Belmont.
Justify began his racing career on Feb.
18, a scant 77 days before the derby. He
won his first three races by a combined Triple Crown winner Justify with trainer Bob Baffert, center, and jockey Mike Smith, left, at Belmont
19 lengths, making trainer Bob Baffert a Park Racetrack on June 10, 2018 in Elmont, New York. / Horsephotos/Getty Images photo
believer.
The big chestnut colt with the appetite
to match burst onto the national scene
with a 2½-length victory on a sloppy “I think he’s the greatest of all time,” At 52, Smith became the oldest jockey
track in the derby. Two weeks later, he Smith said. “I just won the Triple Crown, to win the Triple Crown. He celebrated by
survived a challenge in the fog-shrouded man. He’s my champion.” grabbing white carnations from the winner’s
Preakness, winning by a half-length, Justify accomplished a lot in a very short blanket and tossing them in the air.
again in the slop to set up a Triple Crown time. “He just puts an old man out there to sit
try. At 6-0, he joins Seattle Slew, from 1977, still, who stays out of the way and lets a good
“The raw talent is there,” Baffert said. as the only two undefeated Triple Crown horse be a good horse,” Smith said, crediting
“He just came on there and broke every winners; he’s the first to sweep the series Baffert for using him.
curse there was. It was meant to be.” without racing at age 2 (because of a pulled Smith and Justify took a curtain call
On a cloudy 80-degree day at Belmont muscle); and he’s the only horse to beat nine before entering the winner’s circle. Back in
Park, Justify proved a cool customer. rivals in the Belmont with a Triple try on the New York, where he dominated in the 1990s,
He didn’t flinch when greeted by line. Slew also was a wire-to-wire Belmont Smith took Justify on a walk past the packed
90,327 roaring fans as he walked onto the winner. grandstand, soaking in the cheers and giving
track. He stood so quietly in the starting Justify’s human handlers also made the crowd a closer look at racing’s newest
gate that jockey Mike Smith wondered if history. hero.
he’d respond when it sprang open. Baffert became the second trainer to win Justify’s victory gives racing its second
Did he ever. the Triple Crown twice, having overseen Triple Crown winner of the decade. The
Justify led all the way in achieving American Pharoah. James “Sunny Jim” last time there were two Triple Crown
one of the sports world’s toughest feats 45 Fitzsimmons guided Gallant Fox in 1930 and champions in the same decade was the
years to the day that Secretariat won the Omaha in 1935. 1970s, which produced Secretariat, Seattle
Belmont by a record 31 lengths. Baffert “It never gets old,” Baffert said. “American Slew and Affirmed.
called Justify one of the all-time greats. Pharoah, he’ll always be my first love.”

50 ARIZONA ALUMNI MAGAZINE