Three-Year-Old Season
Following his third-place finish, Connect took a six-month break from racing. After his break, Connect would try again to win his first race. At the start of the race, Connect dropped to fifth. For the first quarter of a mile, he stayed in fifth only two lengths. After that, he made a quick sweeping move just in front by a head. Right after that, he opened up his lead to win his first race by four lengths. Next up was an allowance less than two months later. At the start, he was sixth but quickly moved up to second. He comfortably stalked the leader Wake Up In Malibu until the homestretch, where he took over the lead and went on to win by three and three-quarter lengths.
Following two straight races, Connect attempted to go three in a row with his stakes debut in the Curlin Stakes. At the start of the race he was fourth but by the first quarter of a mile, he was in the lead. For the rest of the race, he led by one length with no one being able to catch him. Following his win, he would make his graded stakes debut in the Travers Stakes. At the start of the race, Connect stayed in the middle of the field in seventh, then moved up to sixth. Despite moving all the way up to fourth, he fell back in the stretch and finished sixth.
Despite the performance, he went to another graded stakes attempt 28 days later in the Pennsylvania Derby. He had another big field to deal with. This included Kentucky Derby winner Nyquist, Louisiana Derby winner Gun Runner, and Preakness Haskell and Santa Anita Derby winner Exaggerator. At the start he was seventh, but by the first quarter of a mile he had moved up to fifth. After dropping back to sixth he moved up on the rail. While three other horses (Awesome Slew, Gun Runner, Nyquist) were on the outside, all of them were less than a length apart from each other. With a furlong to go, Awesome Slew and Nyquist began to fall back and were out of contention for winning. Gun Runner charged on the far outside while Connect fought back intrepidly. At the wire, Connect was the winner by half a length.
After a 63-day break, Connect was back to try and get his first Grade 1 win to redeem his defeat in the Travers Stakes. Also, this would be Connect's first time to race against elder horses. At the start Connect settled in sixth place for the start of the race. Starting with half a mile Connect began to move up placings one by one, quarter by quarter, until the final turn where he moved up to second. He was just half a length away from victory and just needed to pass the leader Divining Rod. Eventually, it turned into a dogfight. For every head bob, Divining Rod and Connect traded placings. One moment one would be in front and the next behind. Soon Connect persisted and took the lead to win by a nose.
