Racing fans who watched the second jewel of the Triple Crown came away with two distinct impressions of the race: Either Justify showed his mettle when tested for the first time or he showed he’s topped out and is on the way down.
Mike Brunker
Mike Brunker is an assistant city editor at the Review-Journal and he writes a weekly horse racing column. The column is posted on Thursday's and appears in Friday's print edition. He previously covered horse racing for the San Francisco Examiner, the Thoroughbred Times and NBCSports.com. Follow @mike_brunker on Twitter
The Kentucky Derby winner is 2-5 on the morning line for the second jewel of the Triple Crown, but he still has some questions to answer.
The Bob Baffert-trained colt ran a strong race to end the “curse of Apollo,” but his favorable trip over the “sloppy” racetrack means that questions remain to be answered before he can be considered one of the great ones.
The 3-1 favorite should get a favorable pace scenario, but can he last 1 1/4 miles? See what horse racing columnist Mike Brunker, the #RJhorseracing handicappers and guest experts Bob Ike, Patrick McQuiggan and Ellis Star think.
Narrowing the field to a manageable number of horses that you can return to when post positions are drawn for the Run for the Roses on Tuesday will give you an edge over handicappers who are grappling with a 20-horse field.
Speed figures are a great tool, but they are not a reliable crutch when it comes to deciphering a race as complicated and unique as the Run for the Roses.
The last two prep races for the Run for the Roses – the Arkansas Derby and Lexington Stakes – will be run on Saturday, leaving handicappers a mere three weeks to make sense of what has been an exhilarating run up to the main event.
If we didn’t see the Kentucky Derby winner last week, then we almost certainly will on Saturday when the Wood Memorial, the Blue Grass Stakes and the Santa Anita Derby lure most of the top guns for the Run for the Roses.
The Group 2 UAE Derby — part of a stellar Dubai World Cup card — and the Grade 1 Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park make for a challenging handicapping challenge, part of which involves getting up early Saturday.
With just six weeks until the Kentucky Derby, give or take a day, most horses being aimed for the race are going to run just once more to try to secure a spot in the starting gates.
The Bob Baffert-trained colt has been spectacular in the first two races of his career, but his lack of seasoning raises questions about whether he’ll be ready for the moving mosh pit that is the Kentucky Derby.
Many bettors didn’t heed clear signals that Good Magic was not primed for a top effort in last weekend’s Fountain of Youth Stakes. They have an opportunity to rebound this weekend by applying the lesson from that defeat.
Just as playwrights use unseen characters to advance the plot, this year’s road to the Triple Crown has been overshadowed by two horses — Good Magic and Bolt d’Oro — whose absence has called into question everything we’ve been watching on stage.
When you use Twitter to filter for a specific niche like horse racing, you begin to receive valuable intelligence without lifting a finger. Best of all, it’s often information you wouldn’t necessarily think to search for.
More points used to determine the starters in the Run for the Roses are on the line starting with Saturday’s Risen Star Stakes (Grade 2) at the Fair Grounds. Horseplayers need to pay close attention to this second round of preps.
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