Analysis: The Triple Crown is on life support. Time to shuffle the calendar.

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BALTIMORE — The purists and the traditionalists are right. The sanctity of the Triple Crown is a credit to its unparalleled difficulty.

Many have tried and failed. Still, racing the second leg was, historically, a rite of passage for the Kentucky Derby winner. Only 13 horses have swept the three major races in the past 107 years. And only eight trainers have chosen to forgo Preakness — four of them since 2021.

Consider this: The Triple Crown shouldn’t be so tough that nobody dares to even try.

The reason our collective consciousness gets wrapped up in the pageantry of the racing season is, like any worthwhile sports story, the cocktail of hope and mystery. We’re enamored by the chase.

It starts at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky., where just last week a 3-year-old colt ran what trainer Cherie DeVaux aptly described as “the race of a lifetime.” DeVaux’s boots were still muddy when the Maryland Jockey Club invited her and Golden Tempo to run in the Preakness.

The chase ended before it really began — for a third time in the past five years.

Kentucky Derby-winning trainers, fairly and with the backing of modern medicine, are becoming more cautious in running their prized colts on a two-week turnaround. Who can blame someone like DeVaux, the first female trainer to win the Derby, for arguing that her “top priority” is Golden Tempo’s health and long-term future?

Same story last year, when Sovereignty trainer Bill Mott explained, “We want to do what’s best for the horse.”

Because of the sport’s previous unwillingness to shuffle the calendar, the Triple Crown is on life support.

Back-to-back healthy scratches underscore that truth.

“We are incredibly appreciative of the excitement and support surrounding the possibility of the Triple Crown run,” DeVaux wrote in a statement on social media Wednesday. “We believe the best decision for [Golden Tempo] moving forward is to give him a little more time following such a tremendous effort.”

Instead of chasing history, Golden Tempo is pointed toward running the Belmont Stakes in June.

It’s not just the Derby winner. Of the 18 horses that ran in Louisville, only one might arrive at the starting gates in Maryland after two weeks of rest.

“It’s not enough [time], no,” trainer Brad Cox said last month. “A lot of the trainers that have the success at the top level with these 3-year-olds would tell you that (they) would like more than three weeks as well.”

The Preakness is already the Triple Crown outlier. Some liken it to the forgotten middle child. Baltimore offers a unique vibe compared with the other two legs. Economist Anirban Basu called it “the most democratic” of the three, for the way it brings together patrons of all different backgrounds on one horse-racing weekend. But Preakness attendance has nosedived this decade, and it doesn’t help when the main draw is a no-show.

Mike Rogers, executive vice president of 1/ST Racing, which is running the Preakness in partnership with the Maryland Jockey Club through 2026, is a proponent of spacing out the calendar. Hearing Golden Tempo opt out is another thorn in the Preakness’ side.

“It was definitely disappointing,” Rogers wrote in a statement to The Baltimore Sun. “But at the end of the day, you can’t criticize Cherie or [owner] Daisy [Phipps Pulito] for putting the welfare of their horse first. We’re still going to have a strong, full field, and we’re looking forward to an outstanding Preakness 151.”

Horsemen have long debated the merits of the Triple Crown calendar.

Before 1969, the racing series experimented with intervals ranging from 28 to 42 days between the first and third races. The modern format, snug within a 35-day window (two weeks before the Preakness, three weeks before the Belmont), didn’t quiet the discourse.

The first year under the current model, Majestic Prince won the Kentucky Derby, then the Preakness two weeks later. Hall of Fame trainer Johnny Longden didn’t think it was in the horse’s best interest to race at Belmont. The horse’s owner, Frank McMahon, pulled rank; Majestic Prince finished second and never raced again — every trainer’s and owner’s worst fear for pushing a horse past its limits.

According to the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, race-related fatalities have steadily declined year over year since 2018 but rose from 2024 (0.90 per 1,000 starts) to 2025 (1.05). Locally, there were 27 racehorse deaths at Maryland tracks in 2025, according to the nonprofit Horseracing Wrongs.

Horse deaths, put simply, haunt the spirit of the Triple Crown.

Spreading out the calendar ensures greater participation in a safer playing field. For those arguing that it would make the Triple Crown an easier achievement, the series becomes much tougher in a stacked field of well-rested, elite colts.

The debate over the calendar’s merits became embedded in horse racing tradition.

In 2023, 1/ST Racing president Aidan Butler proposed a change and “did not win that battle.” Near consensus among horse racing enthusiasts says one race per month from May to July would make the most sense. This time last year, Mike Repole, a prominent owner in the sport, shared a lengthy post on social media advocating to move the Belmont up one week, then sliding the Preakness back four weeks.

“The Triple Crown is hard to win for a reason,” DeVaux told reporters on Sunday. “I appreciate the history of it. Horses are definitely different. They’re not built the same. They’re not trained the same as back then. But current times have shown that it can be done with the right horse.”

American Pharaoh broke a 37-year drought by winning the Triple Crown in 2015. Then in 2018, Justify made Bob Baffert the only trainer to win the Triple Crown twice. Two horses reached the mountaintop in a four-year span, but with each passing year since, detractors of the current calendar have grown louder.

If it’s going to happen, this year should be the one to tip the scales.

NBC Sports is in the final year of its contract broadcasting the Preakness. A new partner is likely to be decided later this month, which opens the door to legitimate change.

Maryland Jockey Club president and general manager Bill Knauf told The Sun that the organization would be “open to all possibilities.” If the New York Racing Association is willing to play ball, to save the Triple Crown, then maybe the purists and traditionalists will buy in, too.