Can the Triple Crown Still Be Won?
Ten Champs Lost the American Triple Crown at Belmont Park
Since 1979, ten thoroughbreds have entered the third leg of the three-raceTriple Crown with wins in the Derby and the Preakness. None have won at Belmont Park.
The years go by, and the difficulty seems to increase with the presssure cooker expectation to produce a new thoroughbred champion who can run the gamut of the American Triple Crown. Is the grind of three races in six weeks' time asking too much of a young thoroughbred?
Only three-year-olds run for the roses in Kentucky the first Saturday in May at Churchill Downs, competing for victory in the Kentucky Derby, the most prestigious thoroughbred championship in America. A trainer has two weeks to prepare a colt, or filly, for the second leg of the Triple in Maryland. If there, a game thoroughbred can win again in the Preakness Stakes, he must be ready to compete a third time three weeks hence in the Belmont Stakes in New York.
These three-year-olds are in their second competitive season, and most of them have run just five, or six races, some fewer, before shipping to Kentucky. How the horses respond to travel to three different locations in the short time span is also a question mark left unanswered until it's actually completed. Thus, there is great unpredictability, yet great expectation on the road to the American Triple Crown.
Only eleven thoroughbreds in history have approached the third leg of the Triple, the Belmont Stakes, with victories wrapped up in the Derby and the Preakness, and met with success that third time. The astounding statistic of ten hopefuls since 1979 losing at Belmont has caused disbelief in the thoroughbred world: a Triple champion just can't be found again. It's too tough.
Top trainers agree that the grueling schedule for these young horses can ruin the careers of otherwise champion thoroughbreds. D.Wayne Lukas, who has trained winners in a record thirteen Triple Crown races in his career, favors shortening the Derby and the Belmont by 1/8 mile and 1/4 mile, respectively, and adding another week for preparation between the Derby and the Preakness.
Trainer Bobby Frankel, who regularly produces top runners, says the preparation millstone for the Kentucky Derby can ruin "$100 million worth of horses."
When champion Funny Cide won twice, but faded in the Belmont rain, and then kept racing with little success in his three-year-old season, trainer Barclay Tagg eventually was disappointed in his own decision not to rest the colt. "In hindsight," he said, "I would have just skipped everything after the Triple Crown and started over again (in 2004)."
Funny Cide never regained his form after the Triple. Smarty Jones was retired after a scintillating Triple run in 2004 in which he lost only the Belmont in the final two lengths. In 1999, Charismatic met the Derby and Preakness challenge, but fractured a front leg in the last Belmont furlong and finished third.
In 2002, War Emblem survived a bad stumble out of the Belmont gate. He was unable to recover his championship stride and could finish no better than eighth.
We have not yet reconciled the memory of Barbaro's 2006 Preakness. Did his eagerness to run, his explosion from the gate before the race started, signal over readiness, or preparation so stressful that he was disoriented?
A former Breeder's Cup president, D.G. Van Clief, has said the growing number of years without a Triple Crown champion may lead to a demand for changing the present three-race schedule. "...each year we go without a Triple Crown winner, the case is building for more space between the races because we are asking a lot of these horses," he stated. But he also believes the format as is represents "such a recognizable sporting fixture" that any drive to change it would meet with huge opposition.
Changing the schedule would favor the horses, perhaps, but it would suspend past records in the Triple's history. It would prompt the use of an asterisk beside each new winner's name, much as baseball's home run records when the league schedules were lengthened.
The last champion to win all three races of the Triple was Affirmed in 1978. Since then, the ten two-race victors who lost at Belmont Park include: Spectacular Bid, 1979 (third); Pleasant Colony, 1981 (third); Alysheba, 1987 (fourth); Sunday Silence, 1989 (second); Silver Charm, 1997 (second); Real Quiet, 1998 (second); Charismatic, 1999 (third); War Emblem, 2002 (eighth); Funny Cide, 2003 (third); and Smarty Jones, 2004 (second).
Change may be good in some instances, but it's not always game worthy. In the near future of thoroughbred racing, it appears those youngster three-year-olds geared for the Triple Crown will have to keep toughing it out.
