The Kentucky Derby winner won’t be running in next week’s Preakness Stakes, meaning there’s no chance for a Triple Crown this year. The last leg will be run in Saratoga Springs again this year, and some racing fans are questioning whether the schedule needs to be adjusted to fit modern horse training practices.
Sovereignty won the Kentucky Derby in a thrilling finish.
But any hopes of a Triple Crown were quickly dashed after trainer Bill Mott announced his thoroughbred wouldn’t participate in the Preakness. It’ll be the seventh consecutive year without a Triple Crown horse.
Todd Aupperley is a fireman in Baltimore, home to the Preakness, when he isn’t playing the ponies in Saratoga Springs. He comes up a handful of times every year. On this morning, he’s watching some of the horses train at the Oklahoma track across the street from Saratoga Race Course.
“No, I’ll watch it. It’s a little disappointing being from Baltimore that the horse isn’t coming to compete. But in today’s racing environment horses don’t usually race off two weeks rest and trainers like to give them four, five, six weeks sometimes. So, while it’s disappointing, it’s understandable,” said Aupperley.
The Preakness is run just a short drive from Aupperley’s home.
The Triple Crown ends with The Test of the Champion for a reason. It’s three challenging races over the span of only six weeks.
“There’s been talk, and there will continue to be talk, about changing it. Maybe allowing a month in between each race. That’s been discussed. I know Pimlico, or the Maryland Jockey Club wanted to do that a few years ago. But you’re messing with tradition and a lot of traditionalists are 100% against it because that’s what makes the Triple Crown so hard to achieve is the distances and the spacing of the races and things like that,” said Aupperley.
Aupperley, however, is no traditionalist.
“I think you need to adapt to the times and I think in today’s climate a change probably wouldn’t be a bad thing,” said Aupperley.
Hall of Famer Todd Pletcher has trained Kentucky and Belmont Stakes winning-horses. He says the industry is weighing how to change the Triple Crown schedule.
“You know, so, trying to stay true to tradition or trying to make changes so the horses have a little more recovery time to get ready for the next step and I think that’s what the industry is looking at. I’d kind of compare it to a change that you’ve seen in Major League Baseball where pitchers don’t go every two or three days like they used to. They get a little more time between starts,” said Pletcher.
Pletcher says if the schedule gets changed, the Triple Crown would lose some of its gravity. Only two horses have won it since 1978, and just 13 overall.
“I think it’s the trend of training, it’s just more and more time between races has led to more consistent top performances. They tried incentivizing it [running the Triple Crown] at one time, there was a bonus for the horse that got the most points, had to participate in all three races. So, some people were concerned about maybe somebody trying to push a horse that isn’t ready to run just to get the bonus. It’s tough. But I do think if you had the first week in May, the first week in June, July 4th, you might see more horses participate in all three,” said Pletcher.
The Belmont Stakes on June 7th is being run upstate again this year at a shorter distance as its usual downstate home undergoes a half-a-billion-dollar renovation.
Even without a Triple Crown contender last year, Saratoga saw sold-out crowds for the week-long racing festival. New York Racing Association Vice President of Communications Pat Mckenna says they “expect more of the same” this year.
National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame Communications Director Brien Bouyea says it’s called the Test of the Champion for a reason.
“I personally do not think you need to change the Triple Crown. To have two horses that have won it in the past decade shows that it can be done. It’s certainly not an impossible task. But you need the right horse, the right circumstances. There’s so much that goes into it,” said Bouyea.
He adds, however, that there’s some precedent for current conversations about changing the Triple Crown schedule.
“Before American Pharoah won in 2015 there was a lot of discussion of, ‘do we need to split up the schedule a little bit more. Do we need to put more time in because it’s such a difficult task to achieve it.’ There’s been talk that you could have the Kentucky Derby the first Saturday in May, you could have the Preakness Stakes the first Saturday in June, and then you could have the Belmont Stakes as the wrap-up the first weekend in July. These things could be worked out but there’s been this sort of buzz. I know officials in Maryland have looked at pushing things back, they’ve had conversations with the officials in New York about possibly changing that schedule up. So, I think you’re going to see more of these things happen over the next couple of years,” said Bouyea.
With the Belmont festival and a July 4 weekend of racing before the regular meet, Saratoga will host a record 49 days of racing this year.
