The Major League Baseball season is in full swing, the NBA playoffs rage on, and the NHL’s Stanley Cup playoffs continue, all combining to make it one of the busiest times of the year for casino sports books and online wagering sites.
All that is missing this time around is thoroughbred racing Triple Crown fever, which ignites when a 3-year-old who has won the first two jewels, the Kentucky Derby and Preakness, aims for the Belmont Stakes.
The 156th Belmont, held at the world classic distance of 1 ½ miles, will take place this year on Saturday, June 7, at Saratoga while Belmont Park undergoes remodeling.
This year’s Triple Crown fate was sealed early, the day after the Kentucky Derby to be exact, when Bill Mott, the trainer of victorious Sovereignty, opted to take a pass on the Preakness and point instead for the Belmont.
Journalism, who finished second to Sovereignty in the Derby, won the Preakness on May 17, setting the stage for a rematch that will stir up interest, albeit not quite the magnitude of a possible Triple Crown winner.
Triple Crown fever is rare. There have been only 13 winners in history, the latest two being Justify in 2018 and American Pharaoh in 2015. There was a 37-year drought of champions between American Pharaoh and Affirmed, who won in 1978. There was a 25-year gap between Citation in 1948 and Secretariat in 1973.
The late, great, racing historian and journalist Charles Hatton, who had a distinguished 40-plus year career writing for the Daily Racing Form, is credited with coining the phrase “Triple Crown” in the 1930s.
The first winner of the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont Stakes, Sir Barton in 1919, and quite possibly the second winner, Gallant Fox in 1930, were therefore “grandfathered” into the exclusive club.
In the world of sports, there is a Super Bowl champion every year, a World Series champion every year, a Stanley Cup champion every year, an NBA champion every year, and so it goes for almost every other team competition.
The honor rolls of the championships boast teams of varying qualities. There is no argument that some teams were better than others. Some teams stand out as dynasties; others gather dust on the mantel of time. It is an inevitability when there has to be a winner.
On the contrary, there does not have to be a Grand Slam golf champion every year, nor does there have to be a Triple Crown thoroughbred champion every year, even though the opportunity exists. The events that comprise the Grand Slam and the Triple Crown are held annually. Individually, they are difficult to win; collectively, they present nearly insurmountable challenges.
The great Bobby Jones stands alone in the world of golf as the only one to win the Grand Slam in a single calendar year. He accomplished the feat as an amateur, 95 years ago, in 1930, when the “Slam” was made up of the British Open (Open Championship), the U.S. Open, and the British and U.S. amateur championships.
Similarly, of the tens of thousands of thoroughbreds foaled every year around the world, only an elite 13 have won the Triple Crown. There were no Triple Crown champions in the 50s and 60s. None in the 80s and 90s.
Triple Crown champions are truly in a class by themselves. Every thoroughbred has only one chance to join the exclusive club because the three races are restricted to 3-year-olds. It may be the elite mantel of greatness in all sports. Even the best golfers have a chance to win the Grand Slam every year.
The three Triple Crown races are held at three different tracks, in three different states, at three different distances, all in a span of six weeks. The track configurations and running surfaces are different, plus there is one little complication: Many of the thoroughbreds who compete in the Triple Crown races are barely three years of age by the calendar.
Racehorses celebrate a universal birthday on January 1. Horses foaled in May, for example, will turn a year old the following January, yet they are only seven months old. Late foals, to which they are referred, are something breeders wish to avoid.
To even have a chance at winning the Triple Crown, a trainer must have a 3-year-old ready on the first Saturday in May at approximately 6:55pm Eastern. There are no exceptions, no postponements, for the Kentucky Derby.
The “Run for the Roses” is held at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky. It is contested at the classic American distance of 1 ¼ miles, the furthest any of the competitors have been asked to run up to that point. The major preps leading up to the Derby are 1 1/8 miles.
The Derby is America’s most famous horse race, but “the greatest two minutes in sports” did not always enjoy that reputation. Once upon a time it was just another race. Then along came promoter Col. Matt Winn in the 1920s to run the track. A marketing genius far ahead of his time, he “talked up” Churchill’s biggest race and laid the groundwork for the status it enjoys today.
The fields for modern day Kentucky Derbies can reach up to 20 starters, creating racing conditions neither the horses nor the jockeys themselves have ever faced or, for that matter, will face again. It is truly a nerve twisting experience.
After the Derby, the horses move on to Baltimore, Maryland for the Preakness at “Old Hilltop,” Pimlico Racecourse. The 2026 Preakness will be run at another Maryland track, Laurel, while Pimlico undergoes some much-needed refurbishing.
The Preakness, held at 1 3/16 miles, is a sixteenth of a mile shorter than the Kentucky Derby and held over a track configuration with tighter turns that has always favored horses with a turn of early speed.
Three weeks after the Preakness, the third and final jewel of the Triple Crown is held in New York, traditionally at Belmont Park although this year Saratoga will host the race. It is called “The Test of the Champion,” and rightfully so. It is a heart-breaking 1 ½ miles, in many cases, the first and only time the starters will be asked to run that far.
The modern-day trend to give horses more time between races, which probably was a factor with Derby winner Sovereignty’s camp this year, was not always the case.
The Derby Trial Stakes at Churchill Downs was a traditional final prep race for the Kentucky Derby. It was held on Tuesday of Derby week, just four days before the main event.
Four trainers in history won the Derby Trial and the Kentucky Derby four days later with the same horse: Hanley Webb in 1924 with Black Gold, Ben Jones (twice) with Citation in 1948 and Hill Gail in 1952, Eddie Hayward in 1953 with Dark Star, and Jimmy Jones, Ben’s son, in 1958 with Tim Tam.
Churchill Downs track officials made the decision in 1982 to move the Derby Trial from the Tuesday of Derby week to the Saturday before, but it had already lost its luster.
Given the overwhelming media presence, hordes of fans and the noise they make, bands, pageantry, and all the events surrounding the Triple Crown events, it is remarkable that any horse has ever managed to achieve greatness.
Finally, while today’s trainers prefer to give stakes horses weeks between starts, there was one memorable occasion in thoroughbred racing history when a Kentucky-bred 3-year-old named Rushaway won two Derbies in two different states not weeks or days apart, but hours apart.
On Friday afternoon, May 22, 1936, Rushaway won the Illinois Derby at Aurora Downs in Aurora, Illinois, immediately after which his trainer loaded him up on a freight train box car bound for Latonia Racetrack in Latonia, Kentucky, where the colt won the Latonia Derby on Saturday afternoon. He was ridden in both races by future hall of famer Johnny Longden.
