2018 Belmont Stakes: Justify'd.

In the end, none of the other horses were faster than Justify.

And it wasn't all that close.

Yes, there has been the usual carping that comes from touts who were pimping Hofburg (and getting dupes to pay them for their picks) that Restoring Hope somehow intentionally ran as a "blocker", as if a horse has never blown a turn before, and yes there are STILL people saying that they're "not sure how good Justify really is" if you can believe that.

But what I saw on Saturday afternoon was a 3-year old colt that was head and shoulders above the other 3-year olds in the race.  Justify is now a Triple Crown winner, and we are already forgetting just how hard the Triple Crown is to win.

We're also seeing just how silly the entire Triple Crown "hype" is.

Because the best races of the day weren't the 11th at Belmont, they were on the undercard.

Take the Metropolitan Handicap (the Met Mile), where Mind Your Biscuits and Bee Jersey both ran spectacular races with Bee Jersey just getting the wire by a nose.  Or the Manhattan handicap, where Spring Quality blazed down the stretch to take the win. Or even the 1 1/2 Mile Brooklyn, where the old grinder Hoppertunity proved himself to be the best of the older dirt horses at a distance. 

Great races all.  Mostly ignored by a general public who gets force fed a steady diet of "Triple Crown" to the exclusion of all other things.  Even the three tracks where the Triple Crown is ran aren't all that important any longer.

Churchill is quaint, it's got history, and really only one good racing weekend in it.  Meanwhile Keeneland has great racing all the time, a series of important blood-stock sales, and is easily the most important track in Kentucky.

Pimlico?  They barely feature live horse racing there at all anymore outside of a brief meet for the Preakness.  Laurel Park (the Maryland Jockey Club) is Maryland's most important track.

And I'm not sure anyone would argue with a straight face that Belmont is a more prominent track than Aqueduct in the NYRA stable, It's probably even lower in quality overall than Saratoga in the late Summer.  And the Travers is usually a more important race than the Belmont, except in years such as this one, when a Triple Crown is in play.

Santa Anita has fare more meaningful races throughout the year than any of the Triple Crown tracks, and the most important track in horse racing right now in America is Gulfstream Park.

So much of the best horse racing this calendar year is yet to come. The Haskell, The Bing Crosby, The Whitney, Royal Ascot, The entire Saratoga meet including the Travers, and then there's the Breeder's Cup. The Arlington Million and the Beverley D.

And that just scratches the surface. Del Mar has a spectacular summer card, as does Monmouth, Arlington Park and Kentucky Downs.

It's great racing, exciting racing, racing that's much better than 3 year old males running a compact schedule into distances they'll probably never travel again.

Yes, none of these have the allure that the Triple Crown does with the general public, but they are in many cases much better races, with much better odds and much higher profit potential.

But they'll get ignored.  And that's a shame.

Because Justify was a great horse and the industry should use him to market the rest of the races, to show that there are great races, with top horses during times when NBC decides to not show up.

Justify was spectacular, a beautiful animal that was much the best against a small subset of horses. Hopefully we get to see him run again against some of the others.