BALTIMORE _ Seven horses will try to knock Kentucky Derby winner Justify from the unbeaten ranks in Saturday's Preakness Stakes, but only one appears to have a legitimate shot.
Even that one is up against it.
"We have our work cut out for us," said Chad Brown on Friday morning outside the Stakes Barn at Pimlico Race Course.
Brown trains 2-year-old champion Good Magic, winner of last year's Breeders' Cup Juvenile, and runner-up to Justify in the 144th "Run for the Roses" two weeks back at Churchill Downs.
Primed for a peak performance, Good Magic ran a terrific race May 5, closing from fifth to second at the head of stretch, a length-and-a-half behind the eventual winner. Alas, he could draw no closer. Good Magic was the right horse in the wrong year.
"I believe there are several Derbys this horse ran a race good enough to win," Brown said Friday. "But that doesn't mean a whole lot."
In fact, the day after the Derby, the 39-year-old trainer talked as if he would not send his colt to Baltimore for the second leg of the Triple Crown. A couple of days later, however, seeing how well Good Magic had bounced back, Brown changed his mind.
"The horse told us," he said Friday.
"I think he looks better this week than he did the week before the Derby," fellow trainer D. Wayne Lukas said Thursday. "I really do."
Turning the tables on Justify won't be easy, of course. Trainer Bob Baffert is four-for-four when bringing a Derby winner to the Preakness. Moreover, the deluge of rain this week in Baltimore, with more expected Saturday, makes a sloppy surface at Pimlico a near certainty. Justify won the Kentucky Derby on a sloppy track.
"I feel like the off track is a push for both horses," Brown said. "That is not one area where we're probably going to make up the difference."
There are other possible difference-makers, however. Justify did not make his racing debut until Feb. 18. So while Saturday will be Good Magic's third race in six weeks, it will be Justify's fifth race in 12 weeks. That's a demanding task for a lightly raced colt.
"There's still an opportunity here to maybe close the gap on the horse," Brown said. "If our horse moves forward and (Justify) regresses in any way, and that's a lot to ask of a horse, Justify, that's moved forward in every one of his starts. But you have to be optimistic."
"I think he just needs to stay the way he is," Baffert said Friday of Justify. "The main thing is you have a good horse. That's the main ingredient."
Is Justify a completely healthy horse, however? The son of Scat Daddy exited the Derby with a bruised heel on his left hind foot. He's fine now, said Baffert, who reported Justify has returned to wearing a regular shoe and is no worse for wear.
Still, Good Magic's connections know something about taking down a Derby winner. His breeder and co-owner, Stonestreet, won the 2007 Preakness when Curlin held off Street Sense. (Curlin is Good Magic's sire.) Two years later, Stonestreet won the 2009 Preakness when the filly Rachel Alexandra beat Mine That Bird.
And who won the 2017 Preakness but Chad Brown when Cloud Computing ran away from Always Dreaming to claim the blanket of Black-Eyed Susans.
"Last year was a different scenario," said Brown on Friday. "We had a fresh horse six weeks between races. We had a strategy and it worked."
This year's strategy is to take another shot and hope for the best. Justify has the talent and the trainer to claim the second jewel and head to the Belmont Stakes in search of becoming the sport's second Triple Crown winner in three years. And Good Magic has the ability to pull the upset.
Said Brown, "We're going to give it our best shot."
