Justify completes Kentucky Derby/Preakness double
The big, handsome chestnut colt was unfazed by the sloppy dirt tracks encountered in both Classics and will bid to complete the Triple Crown in the Belmont Stakes (Gr 1, 12f) in New York on 9 June, a feat last achieved by Coolmore’s American Pharoah (Pioneerof The Nile) in 2015.
Justify is the seventh horse to complete the Kentucky Derby/Preakness Stakes double since 2004 but in that time only American Pharoah has had the opportunity, class and stamina required to go on to Triple Crown glory. Justify’s front running style and sprint-oriented pedigree suggest the Belmont Stakes will be the unbeaten colt’s greatest challenge.
A US$500,000 buy from the Keeneland September Yearling Sale, Justify is trained by Bob Baffert for a group of owners, among them the China Horse Club and WinStar Farm, both of whom have equine interests in Australia.
The emergence of Justify as a superstar and other recent stakes winners underlines the extent of the loss to the international breeding industry from the early death of Scat Daddy (Johannesburg), who died suddenly at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud in Kentucky in December, 2015 when only 11-years-old.
Scat Daddy’s major wins came in the 2006 Champagne Stakes (Gr 1, 8f) and the following season he captured the Florida Derby (Gr 1, 9f) but he broke down at his next start in the Kentucky Derby and never raced again. Beginning his stud career at a modest fee in 2008, Scat Daddy became the leading first crop sire in the United States in 2011, while three seasons (2009 to 2011) also shuttling to Chile were enough to make him champion sire in that country four times.
Just before his unexpected death, Scat Daddy had been advertised to stand the 2016 season at a fee of US$100,000, a figure justified not only by his success in Chile but also by his many stakes winners in the United States and on turf in Europe.
Last season, Coolmore Australia introduced Scat Daddy’s sire son No Nay Never, the Group One-winning, champion two-year-old colt in France in 2013 and, like Lady Aurelia (Scat Daddy) and this season’s Coolmore Australia newcomer Caravaggio (Scat Daddy), Group One winners and successful at Royal Ascot.
No Nay Never on Sunday became the first Europe-based first season sire to be represented by a stakes winner in 2018 when his two-year-old daughter Servalan won the EBF Fillies’ Sprint Stakes (Listed, 6f) at Naas.
Sire of champions in Chile and Venezuela, Scat Daddy now has 100 stakes winners worldwide, 25 Group/Grade One winners, 64 Group/Graded winners and an outstanding nine per cent black type winners-to-foals.
Justify’s female pedigree is quite strong without being exceptional. His first two dams, Stage Magic (Ghostzapper) and Magical Illusion (Pulpit), were stakes placed winners, as detailed in the accompanying catalogue pedigree.
Voodoo Lily (Baldski), third dam of Justify, was a Grade Three and Listed winner in the United States before going to stud to breed no fewer than ten winners, five of them stakes placed.
Overall, Justify has an extremely well constructed and balanced pedigree and it is one worthy of close study showing striking similarities between the breeding backgrounds of both parents.
Linebreeding to favourites like Mr Prospector (Raise A Native), Northern Dancer (Nearctic) and Nijinsky (Northern Dancer) is complemented by a double of Honest Pleasure (What A Pleasure) and a line of his seldom encountered brother For The Moment (What A Pleasure) plus duplications of Secretariat (Bold Ruler) and Hawaii (Utrillo).
For me, though, the 4 x 4 cross of full sisters Yarn (Mr Prospector) and Pleach (Mr Prospector) is the most interesting aspect of Justify’s intricately woven pedigree, as these two mares trace to Monarchy (Princequillo), a sister to champion racehorse and sire Round Table (Princequillo).