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Justify Becomes 13th Triple Crown Winning Horse, Second in 40 Years

Justify, ridden by 52-year-old jockey Mike Smith, captured the 150th Belmont Stakes on Saturday, June 9, 2018 and became just the 13th Triple Crown winner in thoroughbred racing history, after also winning the 144th Kentucky Derby and 143rd Preakness Stakes races in May.

It was just three years prior that the horse American Pharoah broke the 37-year Triple Crown-winning drought. Both American Pharoah and Justify were trained by Bob Baffert — the second trainer to ever train more than one Triple Crown winning horse in a career.

Justify led the entire race wire-to-wire and completed the mile and a half in an unofficial time of 2 minutes 28.18 seconds. He is the second undefeated Triple Crown winner, joining Seattle Slew in 1977.

Justify outdistanced a field of ten horses. Gronkowski (named after co-owner Rob Gronkowski, the star tight end for the New England Patriots) finished runner-up, and Hofburg third.

Larry Collmus was at the call for the race on NBC.

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