Justify won the Kentucky Derby, and you might have heard people talking about history being made.
Now that the Kentucky Derby is behind us, it’s time to consider the historical context. We usually try to do this in the broader sense of wondering if the Triple Crown will be won by the winner, but there’s actual immediate history to talk about.
Justify became the first horse in 136-years to win the race without having raced as a two-year-old. That’s something you probably heard a few times after the race was over, but it’s alright if you don’t know what it means or why it matters.
Considering this was the 144th running of the Derby, this is significant. How many things can we saw broke a streak like this? The Cubs winning the World Series is the closest thing as we had to wait over 100-years for that.
Back to context, this streak predates the Cubs World Series streak we all fawned over by a few decades.
This specific curse originated with Apollo, who raced in 1882 and broke blazed its own trail by winning the Derby as a two-year-old without having raced the year before. Since then no horse repeated that feat, thus creating ‘The Curse Of Apollo’, a streak that stood until Saturday afternoon. The closest we came recently was last year when Battle of Midway finished in 3rd at the Derby.
We as sports fans are obsessive over things like records and streaks, and while this is a lowkey streak we weren’t paying attention to it’s never a bad time to get on board and pretend you were all about it from the start.
It’s also impressive from the standpoint that Justify is essentially a rookie horse. We’ve seen horses race the Derby as two-year-olds and then perform better the next year so that experience is valuable. This was the first go for Justify (not unheard of, to be fair) but the horse already had the awareness to navigate the track and win.
Monday morning’s watercooler conversation will contain talk about the Kentucky Derby. So arm yourself with this knowledge to make yourself sound like the smartest horse racing expert in the office.
Add us as a preferred source on Google