As the clocks spring forward Sunday for Daylight Saving Time, Bob Baffert’s sensational debut winner Justify looks to spring forward on the Kentucky Derby (G1) trail at Santa Anita.
The Scat Daddy colt’s 9 1/2-length maiden conquest here on February 18 made the racing world sit up and take notice. Not only did Justify rip seven furlongs in 1:21.86, earning a 100 Brisnet Speed rating, but the manner of his victory raised hopes that he could be very special.
So special, in fact, that Baffert originally talked about advancing to the March 25 Sunland Derby (G3). A points race for a horse who’s this late onto the scene? Potentially putting Justify into the Kentucky Derby in his third lifetime start?
The Hall of Fame trainer has now switched his next target to a one-mile allowance race at Santa Anita Sunday, carded as the 5TH (post time 4:34 p.m. EDT/1:34 p.m. Pacific), but not his ultimate goal of the Derby. Justify will get his two-turn experience in this gentler spot before tackling one of the final Derby preps, worth 100 points to the winner.
Baffert used allowances as experience-builders for his past two champion three-year-old males, Arrogate (2016) and West Coast (2017). The salient difference, of course, is that neither of them came to hand in time for the classics. Justify has put himself on an accelerated program.
Baffert’s belief that Justify can make the Run for the Roses has sparked energetic debate. The obligatory reference is invoked: no horse since Apollo (1882) has won the Derby after being unraced at two. The list of those who couldn’t defy the “Apollo curse” includes Curlin, a future Hall of Famer, in 2007.
Sunday’s race won’t tell us if Justify can rewrite the record book, but it does mark another necessary step along the way.
Aside from stretching out to a route, Justify will have two additional changes on the track. The blinkers are coming off, and Hall of Fame rider Mike Smith is taking over from Drayden Van Dyke. He also has a change of ownership, with Starlight Racing and Head of Plains Partners now coming on board with WinStar Farm and China Horse Club.
Drawn on the far outside in post 8, Justify has been installed as the 2-5 favorite versus a few stakes-tested rivals. He will meet a cast composed of Simon Callaghan’s All Out Blitz (8-1), runner-up to McKinzie in the Sham (G3) and a distant third in the San Vicente (G2); fellow Baffert trainee Curly’s Rocket (6-1), a recent sprint maiden winner who just missed to Nero two back; the Jerry Hollendorfer duo of Shivermetimbers (5-1 with blinkers on), fourth in the Sham and seventh in the Robert B. Lewis (G3), and Golden Gate maiden winner Tap Fever (20-1), sixth in a turf allowance; Pepe Tono (6-1), who adds blinkers off his sixth in the Lewis for Victor Garcia; Calexman, eighth in the El Camino Real Derby (G3) and withdrawn from Saturday’s San Felipe (G2) by trainer Vladimir Cerin; and Platinum Equity, stuck in his first allowance condition and going turf to dirt for Richard Baltas.
