Ransom Notes: All Aboard The Justify Bandwagon, I Am Honored To Be Your Driver

 

Who is Ready For a 13th Triple Crown Winner? I Am!

By Margaret Ransom

I confess, I’m pretty excited.

I am excited to think that Justify may be the next Triple Crown winner. And I really believe it, so much so that I am to the point that — against my better judgment and personal theory that races should always be run before crowning a winner — I refuse to believe there will be any other outcome.

OK, so my current level of excitement is not to say I wasn’t ecstatic to have witnessed American Pharoah’s accomplishment three years ago, but I’d been let down so many times in both my personal and professional life that, before 2015, I didn’t think it was ever going to happen again — literally, ever.

I had convinced myself that the way horses were trained and raced and the way the Triple Crown was set up, comparatively speaking, that no horse conditioned in today’s world could physically get it done. So, I guess I wasn’t really ready for American Pharoah. Shame on me.

But, boy, am I ever ready for Justify now.

I was barely four when Secretariat was victorious in record fashion in 1973, so I don’t remember much. I have stronger memories of Seattle Slew and Affirmed — the former because I was seven and he looked like The Black Stallion to me, and the latter mostly because my parents knew Laz Barrera. And as we all know, it had been an epic drought for all of us somehow interested or involved in racing until 2015. After so many close calls, I am grateful to American Pharoah, but… (more)