Justify making great waves as stallion with City Of Troy and Ramatuelle

"The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see” – now I don’t expect for a minute that Winston Churchill was talking about breeding elite thoroughbreds when he spoke so wisely, nor Queen Elizabeth II in her 1999 Christmas Message, though the latter is actually credible if highly unlikely.

However, it is exactly the wisdom utilised daily in the art of mating broodmares to their most suitable stallion. In the case of leading second-crop sire Justify, we don’t have to look too far back to see that the odds were very much in his favour with regard to scaling similar heights as a sire to his dominating Triple Crown-winning racing career.

Being a son of the all-conquering and much missed Scat Daddy makes Justify a descendant of breed-shaper Storm Bird.

Storm Bird’s mating with Terlingua resulted in the birth of his heir Storm Cat whose descendants continue to dominate the leading sire lists on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. It is fitting that Terlingua is a daughter of the most famous Triple Crown winner of all in Secretariat, giving him a touch on both Triple Crown winners of the modern era (2015 winner American Pharoah is out of a mare by Storm Cat’s son Yankee Gentleman).

For a quick refresher, from just eight crops before his untimely passing aged 11, Scat Daddy was responsible for 98 stakes winners, 52 of those in Group/Graded races, and an incredible 16 of those in Group/Grade Ones – and that’s just the Northern Hemisphere. To add even more gloss, none of those were conceived at a fee higher than $35,000 as Scat Daddy died in December 2015, just weeks before his fee was set to jump to a much deserved six figures for the first time.

On the contrary, as a Triple Crown winner Justify naturally started life in the upper echelons of the stallion market at $150,000 and was well supported from the outset receiving 252 mares in 2019 and 222 in 2020. With the weight of expectation on his shoulders, how has he fared? It’s unlikely you need me to tell you, he's doing pretty good.

Every young stallion needs mares to succeed but to be as well supported as Justify was perceived to be was somewhat of a double-edged sword. Impressive winners are put down to the quality mares received and a lack of representation on the big days is considered a disappointment.

A promising start at stud

Racing is a tough crowd. However, despite finishing third in one of the most hotly-contested First Season Sire Championships in North America in recent memory, Justify pushed his rivals all the way to December 31 and hasn’t given up the fight for the second-crop title by any means.

Unraced at two due to a setback and standing at an imposing 16.3hh, six first-crop stakes winning juveniles, four in Group/Graded company including unbeaten Airlie Stud Stakes winner Statuette were considered notable achievements.

What would they do at three? At the time of writing on July 21, the answer is quite a lot. Whilst G3 winner Aspen Grove became a second Grade One winner for her fledgling sire, his number of stakes winners increased from six to nine as did his Group/Graded winners leaping to six in total.

Those six include subsequent Grade 1 winner Arabian Lion whose only attempt at black type as a juvenile resulted in an off the board finish in the G2 Los Alamitos Futurity in December. Elsewhere, Verifying, who was a Grade 1 runner-up as a juvenile, filled the same position by just a neck as a three year old in the G1 Blue Grass Stakes and having subsequently added an impressive Grade 3 success to his CV, it’s surely only a matter of time before he becomes the third G1 winner from Justify’s first crop, provided someone else doesn’t get their first.

If expectations were high before Justify’s first runners, he hadn’t done himself any favours by setting a sky-high bar for his crops to come. A sire of strength, substance and elegance, breeders and buyers who put their faith in the unproven star at a considerable cost needn’t have worried.

From just 13 runners to date from his juveniles of 2023, Justify has three winners on the board, each one outdoing the next. In his native North America, Living Magic was an impressive winner of Woodbine’s Listed My Dear Stakes, her second win and second black type score in just three starts. The American Juvenile scene is much slower to get going than our European programme which makes this even more impressive.

Remarkable though her achievements may be, the French-trained Ramatuelle takes the spoils at this stage for leading lady.

Just a head on her second start denies her an unbeaten record from four visits to the racecourse. Her commanding victory against colts in the G2 Prix Robert Papin last weekend booked a one-way ticket to the G1 Prix Morny and the race is on to land the first G1 honours for Justify’s juveniles.

Currently sitting at the top of the Timeform Juvenile Fillies rankings with a rating of 111p, well clear of her nearest rival Porta Fortuna (104p and coincidentally by another son of Scat Daddy in Caravaggio, such was his precocious influence), one suspects she'll reach the top. In fact, only one rival sits ahead of Ramatuelle and he is a colt who hardly needs an introduction.

Made famous on social media for being one of the first horses to remind us the ever-unflappable Ryan Moore is in fact human when overly reluctant to pull up following his facile debut win at the Curragh, City Of Troy was far from fully extended when crossing the line. However, it was what he did after that resulted in a 4/6 starting price in Newmarket’s G2 Superlative Stakes at the July meeting.

His second and only start since, he put in a six and a half length demolition performance that resulted in a record 119p Timeform rating, the highest awarded in the history of the race.

So, let’s take stock. Justify is well on track to equal the rapid start he made with his first crop of juveniles and arguably in even better style. Each one of his graded stakes winners to date has a different broodmare sire and of his stakes winners, top damsire Bernardini is the sole repeat offender.

G1 Woody Stephens winner Arabian Lion earned his highest accolade on dirt over 7 furlongs, whilst Irish trained Aspen Grove did so on turf over a mile and a quarter.

In Ramatuelle and City Of Troy, he holds a pair of aces who both appear comfortably clear of their rivals to date. The former is out of a progressive and typically late-maturing sprinter whilst the latter and current top of the class of 2023 is out of the Group 1 winning juvenile Together Forever by Galileo.

Not to repeat myself, but these two stars have played their early hand from just 13 runners to date. With a mouth-watering 174 registered foals in his 2021 crop, the possibility of Justify filling the unmistakable hole left by his sire’s early passing is well and truly alive.

With the cream of his crops split across two major racing jurisdictions, topping the table will probably be beyond his reach for now, but if Justify continues to produce classy colts and indomitable fillies like City Of Troy and Ramatuelle, give him a little more time and 'Global Domination' may well be the title of the next Justify piece.

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