Will Justify the Horse Run Again

Allow'south start here before we get to the messy stuff, and before nosotros slog together through a swamp of anger and thwarting directed at both old traditions and new normals in the beautiful and disturbing sport of thoroughbred racing. On the second Saturday in June of this year, 46 days ago, a chestnut-colored racehorse named Justify won the Belmont Stakes and become the sport'southward 13th Triple Crown winner. He led for every step of the race'south endless i ane/2 miles and finished i three/four lengths in front end of runner-up Gronkowski, although the consequence was not seriously in doubt at any bespeak in the race, except possibly for dreamers and spoilsports. Justify became simply the second undefeated Triple Crown winner, after Seattle Slew in 1977. More remarkably, he compiled his unbeaten record in half-dozen races over a breakneck 112 days, a feat of precocity that is unmatched in the sport's history.

Information technology had been only three years since American Pharoah won his Triple Crown, catastrophe a 37-twelvemonth drought between Triple Crown winners, a storyline that had both held racing hostage and defined information technology with a reliable narrative arc that became both more punishing and more dramatic with each successive Belmont Mean solar day failure. A sport was set gratis that day in 2015 and Belmont Park shook in celebration. Information technology was unlike any sporting event I've witnessed or covered. We wondered if some other one, so soon, would be as meaningful, and let's be honest here: It wasn't. Merely it was pretty damn good. The grandstand quivered again and the racetrack was awash in the powerful sensation that comes with witnessing history. As I wrote before the race, at that place is no duplicating the agony that comes with waiting 37 years, merely the Triple Crown is a singular accomplishment that defines itself. June 9 was a adept day. A memorable solar day.

On Wed afternoon, to the surprise of no one remotely associated with the racing game, Justify was retired. He did non contest some other race after winning the Belmont and joined Count Fleet (1943) as only the second of those 13 Triple Crown winners to retire without competing further. Ostensibly, Justify was retired considering presently later on returning to his home base of operations in trainer Bob Baffert's California barn, he developed filling–swelling–in his left front ankle and had non been worked since the Belmont. The plan stated past majority possessor WinStar Farm had been that Justify would race two or three more times, including a sendoff in the November Breeders Cup Archetype at Churchill Downs, then be retired. The ankle issue took Justify out of training likewise long for him to get fit, run a prep race or 2 and and so achieve the Breeders Cup in top grade.

The operative give-and-take hither is ostensibly. The explanation makes perfect sense as far equally it goes: Baffert says Justify is injure and has missed also much training to make the Breeders Cup with whatsoever certainty. But there's a $60 one thousand thousand—at least—elephant in the stall: That's the figure that Coolmore Stud has reportedly agreed to pay for the rights to Justify's stallion career. It was a secret in plainly sight long before the Belmont that Justify might never race again, considering he is worth multiples more than in the breeding shed than on the racetrack, and he could become injured—maybe fatally—on the racetrack.

It's Instinctive to Compare Justify's Triple Crown to American Pharoah'south simply Both Share Connection to Greatness

This is non a new story in racing. If you're feeling outraged today because this majestic animal volition now spend his time in a big stall in Kentucky, getting hauled out 3 or four times a day during breeding seasons to impregnate mares, y'all oasis't been paying attention to the sport for the last half-century or so. (Also: Here is where you might feel compelled to mail a pithy tweet most the love life of a stallion. Go right ahead, but endeavor to exist original. And let me add this: In that location's a salubrious debate in the racing industry most the practice of taking a iii-yr-one-time racehorse—a teenager in human terms—and tossing him into a routine where he breeds to as many as 200 mares a year in both hemispheres. It's exhausting and, every bit it'due south been explained to me, not nearly the dream lifestyle that it might seem to a sophomoric male person with a keyboard or a smartphone. Anyway …)

The economics of racing most need that a healthy, accomplished colt be retired sooner than later. It'southward an expensive game that bankrupts fifty-fifty wealthy people and if given a chance to cash out and plough a racehorse into an ATM, most people spring at that. Those economics are a painful reality for fans who simply love watching gifted racehorses, but they are equally real equally clay beneath the hooves. Justify's retirement will land particularly hard for fans who call up that iii years agone, American Pharoah came back after winning the Triple Crown to race three more times. First, he won the Haskell at Monmouth Park in New Jersey in tardily July of that summer; that erstwhile seaside rail was alive that afternoon. Then he lost to Slap-up Ice in the Travers at Saratoga, only more than memorable was that thousands of fans turned out to watch Pharoah gallop on the Friday morning before the race, an unprecedented day of worship at one of the sport'southward truthful cathedrals.

So on a greyness, windy afternoon at Keeneland Race Course in Lexington, he toyed with the field and won the Breeders Cup Archetype. It was a fitting and emotional coda to a celebrated career. Only the greediest amid us were left wanting more.

Just that was different. Pharoah was a valuable stallion, but his possessor, Ahmed Zayat, had sold his breeding rights months before the Kentucky Derby, a hedge that left millions on the table that Zayat was trying to compensate at the racetrack. Still, Zayat also held breeding shares that generate millions; his decision to keep racing Pharoah was pragmatic, but likewise generous. Expect at other examples. In 2004, Smarty Jones was an immensely pop horse who was browbeaten in the Belmont, and so never raced over again. Likewise in 2005 with Afleet Alex a year after, afterwards winning the Preakness and Belmont.

Others have carried on. Curlin was a brilliant three-twelvemonth-old in 2007 and kept going. Secretariat was famously syndicated before winning the Belmont in 1973 and raced into the fall, even in the pre-Breeders Cup era. Seattle Slew and Affirmed kept going. Near recently, Gun Runner finished tertiary in the 2016 Kentucky Derby but kept developing and for the latter half of 2017 was the all-time racehorse in the world. There are endless examples on both sides of this equation.

Eclipse Sportswire / Correspondent

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Here'south what'due south potentially troubling with Justify: He is the best horse to ascend in the burgeoning era of uber-ownership groups. Justify's majority (60 percent) owner is WinStar, a Kentucky breeding farm that'south full of horse lovers merely operates very much like a Fortune 500 business. Purchase, race, sell. On Justify, they partnered with the fledgling China Horse Club, whose public face is Teo Ah Khing, a personable, unrevealing human being fronting what remains largely a mysterious operation. There were two minority owners who do non take convenance rights and at least 1 ex-possessor who does. WinStar had pieces of three starters in the Kentucky Derby and Mainland china Equus caballus Order was in on two. There is a distinct sense that such groups volition be an increasingly potent presence at the top levels of the game and they will make the decision that they made on Justify every single time. Buy, race, sell.

The math is relatively unproblematic on this: If Justify stayed on the racetrack and won three more than races, he could accrue another $5 million or and so in earnings. Every bit a stallion, guessing conservatively, he might stand for a stud fee of $150,000 per mating, breed to 150-200 mares and generate somewhere betwixt $22.5 1000000 and $30 million per year (well-nigh of it for Coolmore). Y'all can mess with the numbers, upwardly and down, and that stud fee could drop in time to come years, merely y'all volition not go to a betoken where continuing to race makes financial sense. It just doesn't. The exceptions will come only if the owner of super-equus caballus du jour is a wealthy philanthropist of the blazon that in one case dominated the game. That guy, or that woman, might choose to continue a great equus caballus on the racetrack, for the people, because they already have plenty of coin and why not take the chance for the love of the game.

(You could also fence here that WinStar and Coolmore have plenty of money, also, and y'all would non be wrong. Good luck making that argument).

One other thing: I believe that Justify has some sort of injury. Four days after the Belmont I was texting back and forth with Baffert.

Me: "I promise he runs a couple more times."

Baffert: "He will."

So at that place is that.

Simply here's another approach: Let information technology go. And ask yourself a question: Putting aside your anger at the institutional greed that envelops slap-up racehorses, what more did you want from Justify? This is what he gave the states: The most mind-boggling rush to greatness imaginable— 112 days from a maiden race to a Triple Crown. He gave us a wire-to-wire Kentucky Derby victory in the slop, ending the Apollo Curse, so dug downwards to win the Preakness, emerging from clam chowder fog (apologies to pea soup, but let's give some other dense liquid a shot here) to win when he wasn't at his best.

And then he ran into history in the Belmont Stakes. He was supposed to get tired, but he didn't. He was supposed to wear down from the compressed schedule, but he didn't. He was supposed to lose. But he didn't.

Some will contend that ii or three more races for Justify would have been good for the sport. Please. American Pharoah's Haskell, Travers and Breeders Loving cup were skilful for the sport, sure, simply it was fleeting. Nothing changed. Horse racing still has problems that won't be solved by any one horse. Fans who make this argument are equally selfish in their own manner equally WinStar and Coolmore in theirs. (And don't go me wrong. If Justify had kept racing, I would take been there with my laptop and lots of fresh adjectives at the set up. Sign me upwardly.) But elevation American Pharoah happened on Belmont Day; the residuum was a long encore. Top Justify happened on Belmont Day, too. Nosotros were lucky to have him, even for simply six races.

Recollect that. Comprehend that. Concur that. Permit the remainder of it get, at to the lowest degree for a day.

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Source: https://www.si.com/horse-racing/2018/07/25/justify-retirement-sign-times-horse-racing

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