Though unbeaten in five starts and bidding for the Triple Crown in the 150th Belmont Stakes, Justify might be one-upped in the pedigree department.
Tenfold, a two-time winner at Oaklawn Park, qualifies for breeding honors before the mile-and-a-half Test of the Champion Saturday at Belmont Park in New York. The Curlin colt is one of nine projected rivals for Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Justify when entries are drawn this afternoon at Citi Field, home of the New York Mets.
Las Vegas bookmakers list Justify as 4-5 favorite to become horse racing's 13th Triple Crown winner, three years after American Pharoah snapped a record 37-year streak between winners. Post time Saturday is 5:37 p.m. Central Time with live coverage on NBC (Resort Channel 4) and wagering available at Oaklawn or on the track's advanced-deposit wagering system, https://www.oaklawnanywhere.com.
Tenfold has bloodlines covered in purple, so to speak, with Curlin finishing a close second in the 2007 Belmont Stakes after placing third in the Kentucky Derby and winning the Preakness. Horse of the Year at 3 and 4, Curlin won Oaklawn's Rebel Stakes and Arkansas Derby in his second and third career starts and proved an early success at stud, his first crop of 3-year-olds including Palace Malice, the 2013 Belmont Stakes and 2014 Metropolitan Handicap winner.
Tenfold's maternal grandsire -- the sire of his dam, Temptress -- is Tapit, who has sired three of the last four Belmont Stakes winners. Tapit, the Wood Memorial winner in 2004, came from the same 3-year-old class as Smarty Jones, whose only career defeat came when second in the Belmont Stakes.
Lacking points necessary to race in the Kentucky Derby, Tenfold finished a hard-charging third behind Justify in the Preakness on May 19 over a sloppy track at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore.
Justify is the first classic winner for the late Scat Daddy, whose last crop is of racing age.
"I guess it's put up or shut up," said David Fiske, racing and bloodstock manager for Tenfold owners Ron and Joan Winchell, who also bred the colt. "I've been telling people there's no better-bred Belmont horse in this crop, so we'll see if breeding means anything."
The Winchell family, who raced Tapit and still hold 50-percent ownership, bought Temptress as a yearling for $190,000,. She became a broodmare after an injury-shortened racing career that included only an allowance victory.
"At one point we tried to buy part of Curlin," Fiske said. "We thought he had a lot of upside, so we figured, shoot, if we were willing to buy part of him, I guess we'd be willing to breed to him. So Temptress' number came up."
Looking ahead, Fiske said, "I don't know if there's a 3-year-old around better bred for the Belmont than (Tenfold) is. He's by a horse that lost the Belmont by a nostril and is one of the top sires in the country, and he's out of a mare who is by arguably the best Belmont sire ever."
Hall of Famer Steve Asmussen trains Tenfold and also conditioned his sire and dam. Unraced at 2, Tenfold won at first asking Feb. 9 at Oaklawn by almost six lengths going a mile and sixteenth. The dark bay or brown colt scored his second again March 18 at the same distance by a neck over the highly regarded Navistar, a Todd Pletcher trainee once pointed to a Triple Crown prep in Hot Springs.
Tenfold can give Asmussen, who posted his 8,000th career victory last month, his second Belmont Stakes winner in three years. A two-time Preakness winner, Asmussen won the 2016 Belmont with Arkansas Derby winner Creator, a gray son of Tapit.
"I'm extremely excited about that (training Tenfold), and have been," Asmussen said. "Temptress was a mare that didn't do as well as she should have on the racetrack over an unfortunate foot injury. But she was just absolutely gorgeous. And with Winchell owning the mare, you can't wait until she has a baby. And then this is what she has. She was just like him: big, beautiful and elegant."
Oaklawn riding champion Ricardo Santana Jr. keeps the mount on Tenfold, who is bound for New York today on a flight from Louisville, Ky., after training at Churchill Downs.
The Belmont Stakes probables, with jockeys added, include Justify, Mike Smith; Blended Citizen, Kyle Frey; Bravazo, Luis Saez; Free Drop Billy, no rider listed; Gronkowski, Jose Ortiz; Hofburg, Irad Ortiz Jr.; Noble Indy, Javier Castellano; Restoring Hope, Florent Geroux; and Vino Rosso, John Velazquez.
Oaklawn winner Bravazo, trained by Hall of Famer Wayne Lukas, placed second in the Preakness and sixth in the Kentucky Derby.
Sports on 06/05/2018