LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Since 1882, when the Standard Oil Trust was formed, Franklin D. Roosevelt was born and the electrical age began with the flip of a switch that lit up 1 square mile of lower Manhattan, no horse has won the Kentucky Derby without racing at the age of 2.
The horse that did it way back then was the chestnut gelding Apollo, named after the Greek god of many things, including the paradoxical powers to both heal and plague. He caught the favorite Runnymede in deep stretch to win by a half-length and earn the heaping sum of $4,560. No one in attendance that day could have predicted how long it would take for another 3-year-old to emerge who did not race at age 2 but would still sniff the roses on the first Saturday in May.
Enter Justify, the undefeated chestnut colt with the big white blaze who had won three straight races in 2018 and is trained by the Triple Crown-winning Bob Baffert. Maybe the curse of Apollo would get the best of him at the Kentucky Derby, or maybe enough was enough, and the right horse had finally come along to send that curse the way of the billy goat and the Bambino.
And on Saturday at Churchill Downs, amid a steady and driving rain, Justify proved he was indeed that horse, fending off Good Magic to win the 144th Kentucky Derby by 2 1/2 lengths in 2:4:20, and putting his name right next to Apollo’s in racing lore. Justify also earned a $1,432,000 paycheck for his jockey, trainer and owners, and rewarded his thoroughly soaked backers with $7.80 on a $2 bet to win. Audible finished third.
“I’ve seen all kinds, I mean this guy, he’s just special,” Baffert said. “He has that presence about him.”
It was an emphatic statement coming from a trainer who, in 2015, won the first Triple Crown in 37 years with American Pharoah and who also presided over the world’s richest racehorse, Arrogate.
Saturday’s result, which came in slop that made the race itself more unpredictable, marked the sixth year in a row that the favorite had won the Derby. It was also Baffert’s fifth Derby victory.
He said it did not bother him that 136 years had gone by without a horse unraced at 2 winning the Derby. What did unnerve him a bit, he acknowledged, was that his wife, Jill, chose to wear a green dress on Saturday. In racing, he said, green is thought to be bad luck.
“She pulled it out,” he said. “I didn’t say anything. I thought, all right, we’re going to see how good this horse is.”
Justify was ridden by Mike Smith, the 52-year-old ironman who is in supreme shape and, in a career overflowing with success, not surprisingly goes by the nickname Big Money Mike. His other Derby triumph came in 2005 when he scored with the 50-1 shot Giacomo, and this time the challenge was to guide his supremely talented, but woefully inexperienced, mount to victory in a jammed 20-horse field.
Which he did, becoming the second-oldest jockey to win the Derby, behind Bill Shoemaker, who was 54 in 1986 when he won on Ferdinand.
“Keep riding horses like this, and you don’t have to work that hard,” said a jubilant Smith. “They take care of all the work for you.”
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