Why Winning The Triple Crown May Now Be An Impossible Task In Racing

By Author: Lee Lane-Edgar
Total Articles: 365
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Since Sir Barton became the first Triple Crown winner in 1919, there have been only 11 horses who have accomplished that feat. These are in chronological order, Sir Barton in 1919, Gallant Fox in 1930, Omaha in 1935, War Admiral in 1937, Whirlaway in 1941, Count Fleet in 1943, Assault in 1946, Citation in 1948, Secretariat in 1973, Seattle Slew in 1977, and lastly, Affirmed in 1978.
So basically the last 10 Triple Crown winners have occurred in the three decades, the 1930’s (3), the 1940’s (4), and the 1970’s (3). And seven Triple Crown winners were seen in a period of 19 years (1930 to 1948).
The 1920’s, the 1950’s, the 1960’s, the 1980’s, the 1990’s, and the 2000’s are all without even one Triple Crown winner. It would seem then, that for whatever reason, they come in streaks.
From 1948, when Citation did it, a period of 25 years elapsed before Secretariat came along and ended the drought in 1973.
Seattle Slew did it just four years later, and Affirmed in the next year in 1978.
Amazingly, we have now gone even longer since the last Triple Crown winner than the period from Citation ...
... to Secretariat.
When Spectacular Bid came along in 1979, many thought that we were going to see the third straight Triple Crown winner. In fact, his trainer Buddy Delp said that “Only an act of God can prevent us from winning the Triple Crown.
Well, maybe not an act of God but maybe a safety pin was found embedded in his hoof the morning of the Belmont Stakes, which may have prevented him from running his best race that day. He was not destined to become the 12th Triple Crown winner, as he tired and finished third. Damn mobsters!
Little did people know that 33 years would elapse without seeing another one. Why has the Triple Crown proven so elusive?
One reason may be the stress of the grueling Triple Crown schedule. The spacing between the races is more condensed than normal, there being only 2 weeks from the Derby to the Preakness. Most horses preparing for the Triple Crown races do not race closer than 3 weeks apart, and they are running in two races, the Kentucky Derby and Preakness, whose distances of 1 ¼ miles and 1 3/16 miles are longer than they have ever raced in their lives. It is no wonder it takes its toll on some of them.
Also, the combination of speed and stamina is hard to find in horses. They can’t just be a plodder to win the 1-3/16ths mile Preakness and they can’t be a speedball only to win the Belmont. There have been a lot of good Derby horses but there always seems to be some horse that is just slightly better suited for the 1 ½ mile distance that comes along. We saw that in 2004 when Birdstone ran down Smarty Jones in the final yards of the Belmont Stakes.
Winning three straight G1 races is hard. It usually involves full fields, because the prestige and purse money is so high, so there is a lot of competition. Running in peak form for three straight races is not an easy thing to do. I have seen many horses run two good ones in a row, but it is less common to see a horse run three great races in a row.
Often we see fresh horses ship in for the Belmont to take on horse that has been battle fatigued and not at peak level. More and more we see trainers cherry pick races now and point them for one of the Triple Crown races, so they are much fresher than the horses that have already been through the Kentucky Derby and Preakness: Birdstone skipped the Preakness and upset Smarty Jones iin 2004. Bobby Frankel elected to rest Empire Maker in 2003 and bring him back in the Belmont, where he overmatched Triple Crown hopeful Funny Cide.
The other explanation is lies in a general opinion within the racing industry that America’s breeding industry is producing increasingly fragile thoroughbreds, and it may be because they are not racing enough before they retire and not proving their durability. Take Whirlaway, who raced 23 times before the Kentucky Derby and 60 times in his career! In contrast, Big Brown raced 8 times, Smarty Jones raced 9 times, and Afleet Alex raced 12 times. Durability is a factor in being able to successfully complete all three Triple Crown races.
And an increasingly fragile stock of horses has made modern day horses less durable than the war horses of the past and thus they pass their genetics onto the next generation and produce similarly fragile offspring. Apparently there is more stud value in saying that your horse was the Kentucky Derby winner or the “two year old champion”, rather than having a horse than has been through 50 races and has proven their toughness and durability. So much for survival of the fittest.