From Night Lines –
This Justice was served at a huge
price
That sonic boom you heard here last week was K D
justice coming home at $92 in a conditioned trot. Despite the fact that the
The main reason K D Justice was ignored in the
affair was the fact that he hadn't faced
the starter in nearly six weeks, but he didn't look the least bit rusty as he
took a nice tracking trip to the stretch for Nicol Tremblay and actually won
going away with a solid burst.
The 5-year--old gelding is owned, trained and was bred
by Keith Willey, the military-turned-horseman who has done a great job with
this protégé. He earned the bulk of his
six-figure bank account in Sire Stakes action over the previous three seasons,
and would appear to be off to a nice start to the current campaign if last
weeks tour is any indication.
It was just about two years ago, however, that Willey
may not have had such kind words for K D justice, who put his conditioner in
the hospital. "We were in the post
parade down at Los Alamitos and he kicked me and broke my leg," Willey
recalled. "I'd already broken it
once in a skiing accident and it had all kinds of hardware in there, and they
ended up taking that out and putting, a rod in the bone"
To show there were no hard feelings, the last time
Keith actually got behind the gelding for a race here back in October, they
teamed up for a nice decision in an amateur event. Unlike the bomb he dropped last week, they
were even-money for that go-around.
While his antics that put Willey in the hospital a couple of years ago were indicative of his nature at the time, his mentor relates that trotter has settled down with maturity. Ching-ching for those who took a shot with him last time.