With the Southern Hemisphere breeding season kicking off and travel clamped down on a global scale, Coolmore Australia has released an hour-long “virtual stallion parade” to show off its 2020 roster, including Triple Crown-winning shuttle stallions Justify and American Pharoah.
The video series features virtual inspections and walk videos of each stallion, along with interviews with several prominent figures within the Coolmore organization, and surrounding the careers of the individual horses.
The Coolmore staff is represented by some of its highest-ranking members, including John Magnier, M.V. Magnier, David Wachman, and James Bester.
Justify, in particular, got a spotlight during the virtual stallion parade, featuring a conversation with the aforementioned Coolmore staff discussing the 2018 Triple Crown winner, as well as trainer Bob Baffert and Ashford Stud manager Dermot Ryan.
“It's so unusual to win a Triple Crown,” John Magnier said. “People have to realize there's only been 13 of them ever, and this fella is an unbeaten Triple Crown winner. You could be talking about he could be a Northern Dancer or he could be a Sunday Silence. He could be the next big thing.
“The world will get fixed sooner than everybody thinks, and when these Justify-type animals go to the yearling sales down there, the international people are going to be interested in Justifys and things of that nature,” he continued. “The way this game is going, the people that are going to survive, I believe, are the people that have the international outlook.”
For both Justify and American Pharoah, Magnier said their underlying appeal to turf racing made them priorities to add to the stallion roster, even though neither raced on the surface themselves, because that perceived affinity for the grass opens them up to greater international success in parts of the world where turf is the dominant surface, such as Europe and Australia.
“It's probably far more likely that Justify should get grass horses than American Pharoah,” Magnier said. “That was the reason that we just had to have him. He shouted for grass, really, and all of his racing was done on the dirt.”
American Pharoah, the winner of the 2015 Triple Crown, has already proven Coolmore's turf hunch to be true, as the sire of prominent grass runners including 2019 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint winner Four Wheel Drive. However, Magnier was confident the surface success would balance itself out over time.
“It's only a matter of time before American Pharoah will get a good dirt horse,” he said. “He's had some success in Japan.”
Baffert echoed Magnier's sentiment that Justify could have had it in him to compete on the turf, if he had been called on to do so.
“People have always asked me, 'You need to bring a horse to Ascot,'” Baffert said. “Now, that would have been the horse to take to Ascot. I think he would have been just phenomenal. But, the really great ones, they can run on anything…He brought his track with him.”
Noting Justify's imposing physical and penchant for getting to the lead early, Baffert said Justify probably could have succeeded on the opposite side of the surface and distance spectrum, as well.
“I came from the Quarter Horse world, and believe me, he could have won the All American Futurity, a $2-million race,” he said. “He's that quick. He's that versatile that he's quick on his feet and just gets running really fast. I could have trained him to win an 870 [yard] race.”
Justify's first Northern Hemisphere foals are weanlings of 2020, and Ryan said they're already starting to emulate their sire in terms of their physicals.
“They have that big hip, rear end, and good hind leg,” he said. “That big ass-end, strength, that drives him. That's very dominant in nearly all of them, that rear end and muscle behind.”
The full virtual stallion parade video can be found below, but the landing page to break the show out by individual stallions can be found here.
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