Justify Beyer 101
 

Justify

Beyer 103 - 97 - 101 for the Triple Crown.

American Pharoah and Justify are nearly twins via TFUS.



They are also both 16.3 hands and have eerily similar running styles to boot.

That would have been some good horse racing if they were born in the same year.

Would be a match race for the ages. Would be absolutely insane.

Pharoah 105 - 102 -105

For the record, I argued that Beyer had the 12 furlong races too slow on Belmont day for Pharoah/Coach Inge and I think the same thing is true for Hoppy and Justify.

I'm not buying that a horse like Hoppertunity who is a solid Grade 2 horse that runs figures in the 100-105 range on his best days and looks like he relishes 12F ran a 98 yesterday in victory or that a horse like War Story who looked razor sharp coming into this race and won it last year with a 102, ran second with a 95. I'm just not buying that was a well below PAR effort and field going 12F.

The 3yos are always more problematical because you can't tell who is going to want to go that far and if they are moving forward in a more general way as they mature. But If Justify is only a 101, that means several of these horses are going backwards instead of forward or didn't like the 12F.

I think it's way more likely Hoppy matched the top of his range at 104,War Story ran 101 finishing 2nd, and Justify matched his peak of 107 loose on the lead again like in the SA Derby than having regressed from earlier in the season. Some of these 3yos looked like they were bred well for 12F and they should generally be moving forward. I would not be surprised if horses like Hofburg, Vino Russo, and Tenfold moved forward from previous bests and have narrowed the gap a little on Justify who made need a rest before breaking out to a new top.

I am with you here.

Chad Brown did nothing all day except for the Raving Beauty shipper's 2nd out (and boy were both dandy, glad I had him), then ran 2nd off a bad break; gotta give it to Gronk, he pulled a Euro shipper on dirt performance we rarely see.

That's pitiful.

why would this be a higher beyer,2.28 is an average time at best and the track was yielding fast times all day.easy goer,risen star and point given were much more impressive.

Hoppertunity's "best days" were nearly 2 years ago. In his last 6 North American starts dating back all the way to February 2017, he has averaged a 98 BSF. The 98 BSF for the Brooklyn also falls in line with the 97 BSF he earned this year in the Tokyo City at Santa Anita which was also at 12 furlongs.

Meanwhile, War Story being razor sharp is a bit dubious. He went from a 75 BSF in a non-effort at Gulfstream to a near-career best 107 before going backwards to 100 BSF in a weak Charles Town Classic. This was followed by a nearly 2 month layoff.

Also, you should be calling into question his 102 BSF from last year's Brooklyn, not using it as evidence that he should have earned a similar figure a year later in defeat. In the 5 races that flanked that 2017 effort (3 before and 2 after), he averaged a 94 BSF. Tapwrit, who won the Belmont later that day, earned a 103 BSF. Tapwrit's Belmont was a full second faster than War Story's Brooklyn.

Not a single horse outside of Justify had ever earned a triple digit Beyer in any previous start. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to find one that broke the 90 BSF mark more than twice in their career.

None of those ran good races Saturday. Vino Rosso got no help up front, and was forced to make an early bid at the favorite going into the far turn. Not surprisingly, he was repulsed and hung. Tenfold was bothered on the first turn and didn't stay on despite his pedigree. Hofburg, who has shown to this point that he is nothing more than a plodder who needs a pace meltdown to even make a run, plodded his way into third while no threat.

In addition, Tenfold and Hofburg--like Justify--have been on accelerated programs to make into the Triple Crown race and not surprisingly have come away with little to show for it other than some interesting mid-race moves and a few traffic problems. The talent might be there, but their connections ought to have waited until they were more ripe. Even if Justify smashed these so-called "curses" to smithereens, he's still the exception to the rule...

The pace of the Belmont was fast, and Justify was used out of the 1 hole to get the lead, how much help was expected?

Of course he was sent, did you think they were going to shuffle him back?

By far the slowest 1/2 mile Justify has ever set. It was a walk in the park for him.

It was the second highest pace figure he has run, not sure how you are coming up with that statement, unless you are in the "raw times" sort of view on comparisons.

In fact here a comparison

American Pharoah on Timeform

130 130 129 127

Justify on Timeform

150 133 125 125

So you can see that run into the first turn Justify was really used, Noble Indy would have had to go like Promises Fulfilled to get ahead of him.

Now if that was easy, well maybe for a horse of exceptional quality you could be right.

I'm looking at the 133 TFUS, which I admittedly misread as the 1/2 mile fraction (it's the 3/4 fraction). That simply points out how well he was able to slow down the pace (150 to 133) when allowed to dictate terms comfortably without any pressure.

I'm not sure if anyone was even entered in the Belmont that could push him further beyond the first half mile, but if there were, conceivably, Gronkowski might have made more of a dent in the race.

Of course, some schooling sessions at the gate might have changed circumstances, too.