When Justify won this year’s Belmont Stakes in Elmont he became the sports
13th Triple Crown champion.
He was undefeated and never raced as a two year old thereby roaring into the record books but not our cultural imagination.
His value as a stud is well over $100 million which means that it’s unlikely the public will ever see this magnificent creature again.
Who could blame Elliot Walden of Winstar Farms for chasing breeding money because it’s large money indeed?
Justify will command over $200,000 for each live foal he sires in the United States and that could amount to about 150 foals per year.
If you have trouble with math let me assist. Justify will make about $30,000,000 per year as a stud. One would have to be very wealthy, very slow and very much in need of applause to risk all that with an injury on the track.
So let’s say bye-bye to Justify.
As a sport, thoroughbred racing is in a double bind with regard to Justify and any other super horse because when they show early promise on the track.
When they win big at an early age they are now invariably hustled off to the stud farm before the public can get to know them at all. And if the public is not given the opportunity to fall in love with the horse, the sport of racing itself will eventually die in the long run. Every sport needs champions that stick around for more than fifteen minutes.
But no matter how quickly our equine champions are whisked away people will always identify with and love fast horses. And it has always been so.
The only way to really appreciate their beauty and their power is to go to the races, hang out near the paddock and just watch.
The horse’s magnificence is made all the more stunning when you get to watch those little 110 lb. jockeys all dressed up in colorful silks jump atop them and fit their tiny toes into the stirrups.
Seeing horses up close in a privilege.
One of my favorite memories as a child was to drive to the barn the night before a big race and watch as a hot walker would take a race-ready horse out of his stall and walk him around the shedrow.
My uncle James Ferraro who was a trainer would say that his job was to wind up the animal like you would wind up an alarm clock. You keep on tightening and tightening the horse until it was ready to explode out of the starting gate.
And you could see their true power and grace that night before as they were walked in the shedrow. It was like watching a professional boxer move. The horse seemed to punch at the ground as it walked by and you knew it was very ready to run.
The beauty and the power of horses have mesmerized sculptors, writers, filmmakers and songwriters for centuries.
I have just returned from a visit to Rome where fine sculptures of horses were all over. They were atop the Vittorio Emanuele II building, inside the Capitoline Museums and winged horses can even be seen guarding the Trevi Fountain as the photo you see attests to.
But if high art is not to your liking just think about how mesmerizing the Peter Shaffer play Equus was. It was about a psychiatrist who was treating a boy who had blinding six horses and was based upon a true incident.
Broadway has written about horses but so has TV. Everyone can recall The Lone Ranger crying out “Hi yo Silver, Away!” and let’s not forget Scout who was Tonto’s horse.
How about Pokey in the Gumby Show, Trigger on Roy Rodgers or the talking horse on Mr. Ed? Budweiser produced 26 Super Bowl ads using those bay colored Clydesdales.
In the film “Godfather,” we saw Khartoum get beheaded. That was a tough one to watch. My son screamed when he saw it.
Even Mick Jagger and Keith Richards used images of horses when they wrote that haunting classic “Wild Horses.” which is considered one of the great rock songs.
Horses bring out the creative urges in mankind. Just think about the wonderful names we come up with for thoroughbreds. Names like Seabiscuit, Ruffian, Man O’War, Affirmed, Secretariat and Seattle Slew.
I once saw Seattle Slew in the paddock at Hialeah and still can remember how black and lean and full of fury he was.
So let’s have three cheers for Justify. We only got to see him for a few weeks of glory and I doubt that his memory will enter into our collective unconscious.
It reminds me of the crass phrase in “Jerry Maguire” to “Show me the money!”
Well, money will surely be shown to the owners of Justify but nothing more than that.
This wonder horse’s name will never have the cache or the magic that a Seabiscuit or a Secretariat or a Silver or even a Mr. Ed.
You see it’s very simple. You just can’t have it both ways. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
So goodbye sweet Justify and enjoy your quiet days on the farm. No more applause for you or for your handlers. I think thoroughbred racing has a problem here that it has yet to figure out and if they don’t figure it out soon the whole industry will be in jeopardy.
