Inside the Triple Crown debate that could change horse racing forever

After winning last year's Kentucky Derby, trainer Bill Mott opted not to run Sovereignty in the Preakness Stakes. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)

(Al Bello via Getty Images)

The politics of the Triple Crown

On the heels of an April 13 report in Sports Business Journal that the Preakness was likely to move a week later in 2027 as a result of negotiations for the race’s television rights, Churchill Downs, Inc., announced last week that it had acquired the intellectual property rights to the Preakness for $85 million in an unusual deal that in some ways links the first two legs of the Triple Crown.

While Churchill chief executive Bill Carstanjen said on a subsequent quarterly earnings call that the state of Maryland “is in control of the destiny of the Preakness,” it’s a complicated and somewhat opaque arrangement because it’s not totally clear what controlling the intellectual property for a horse race means.

The one thing that seems certain is the race staying in Baltimore — at least for the foreseeable future.

Pimlico, the longtime home of the Preakness, is currently being renovated and is set to reopen in 2027 under the control of a state-run board after the track’s previous ownership decided to dump the property and exit the racing business in Maryland.

What has resulted, sources told Yahoo Sports, is a quagmire of government bureaucracy and budget issues that one industry insider called “messy and haphazard,” leaving some to wonder how much direct involvement Churchill will have in the execution and operation of an event in Baltimore that has regularly drawn 100,000 people itself.

“It’s been a complete political boondoggle,” the source said. “Now you feel like somebody that has a real long-term interest in a healthier overall ecosystem has stepped in. You can say a lot of things about Churchill, but it feels like the adults are at the table.”

One of the issues with the Triple Crown is that for most of its history, it has been a concept rather than a business venture. In fact, when Sir Barton became the first horse to win all three American classics in 1919, there was no mention of winning a Triple Crown. That phrase only took hold in 1930 thanks to sportswriter Charles Hatton, who put it into the lexicon after Gallant Fox became the second to do it.

Since then, there have been brief periods where the three races were linked under one TV deal or a corporate sponsor offering a $5 million bonus to anyone who could sweep them — a development that resulted from the owners of 1985 Derby winner Spend A Buck skipping the Preakness to instead chase a $2 million bonus tied to the Jersey Derby.

For the most part, however, the three entities in charge of the Triple Crown races have worked together on a more informal basis — at least until now. It seems likely that Churchill’s financial involvement in the middle jewel will help eliminate some of the decision-making friction between them for a potential change this significant.

After all, moving the Preakness even a week later has a knock-on effect for the New York Racing Association, which is also planning to debut its own $455 million renovation of Belmont Park before the 2027 Triple Crown. Not only would changing the Preakness date potentially impact the Belmont, but moving the Belmont further into June or maybe even July has implications for other big race days later in the year at other racetracks.

"At the moment, we're open to this dialogue," NYRA president and CEO Dave O'Rourke told Yahoo Sports. "I know there's a lot of movement going on in Maryland but we look forward to talking with everyone on what best fits. I think if there is going to be a change, it probably should be more in moderation than anything extreme because we're playing with something that works so well."

Much of how this all plays out in the coming weeks is likely to be tied to television contracts. NBC broadcasts the Kentucky Derby and has had the Preakness since 2001. FOX landed the Belmont starting in 2023 with a contract that runs through 2030. Regardless of whether the Preakness’ rights end up with NBC, FOX or some other entity, there will have to be some measure of cooperation to change the dates.

And, of course, whoever pays for those rights will want the Preakness to have the best field possible — one that always includes the Derby winner, barring injury.

After Mott’s decision to skip the Preakness last year, an inflection point is coming: Horse racing can break from tradition and modernize the Triple Crown series or continue to operate as it has and face the possibility that Derby winners will more regularly skip the Preakness, thus diminishing the value of the asset that both Churchill and the state of Maryland have invested in.

“I don’t know if it’s sustainable,” said prominent New York-based trainer Chad Brown, who has won the Preakness twice, both times with horses that didn’t compete in the Derby. “I don’t see how it can’t change at some point.”

American Pharoah has raked in millions in stud fees since winning the Triple Crown. That windfall has owners and trainers re-thinking what's more important: risking a run for the Triple Crown or cashing in on the stud fees? (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

(The Washington Post via Getty Images)

The argument for a Triple Crown shakeup

Like many in his business, Brown was initially opposed to any Triple Crown shakeup because of tradition and the idea that winning all three races is supposed to be an all-time achievement. Before American Pharoah broke through in 2015, it had been 37 years since anyone had done it — with 13 horses in that span winning the first two legs and falling short in the third.

But the current spacing of the races has only been formalized since 1960. Before that, there was plenty of shifting around. When Whirlaway swept it in 1941, the Preakness was 28 days after the Derby but the Belmont was only a week after that. When Citation pulled it off in 1948, the Belmont was four weeks after the Preakness — and he also won a race in between, not to mention the one-mile Derby Trial just five days before the Kentucky Derby itself.

Of course, nearly 80 years later, Citation’s workload is now unthinkable — which is the crux of the debate.

Modern horses simply do not run as often as they used to. There are various reasons for that, many of which are rooted in the breeding industry. Though the science isn’t totally conclusive, there is widespread belief that generations of inbreeding to reproduce specific traits has created a more fragile animal. For commercial breeders, sires with speed rather than durability have produced more desirable yearlings at auctions. And for horses that win big races, there is so much money at stake in potential stallion deals that owners tend to have less appetite for risk.

You can track that evolution through the way horses get ready for the Derby. As recently as 30 years ago, the key prep races were two or three weeks before the Kentucky Derby. Now they’re all in March or the first weekend of April.

It used to be common for horses to have rigorous campaigns to get fit and ready for the Derby. By the time Affirmed and Alydar got to the Triple Crown in 1978, they had already raced against each other six times as 2-year olds. This year, only seven of the 20 horses have even run six times in their careers.

O’Neill’s entry Pavlovian has 10 races under his belt already, making him an outlier and a throwback.

“It’s such a different era we’re in now,” he said. “It’s a good era, but everyone’s so lightly raced.”

Nobody is as lightly raced as Emerging Market, the Brown trainee who made his racing debut on Feb. 7 and then won the Louisiana Derby to punch his ticket to Kentucky. That schedule wasn’t by design. Every time Brown got the horse pointed toward a race, a minor setback would pop up.

But that’s typical in racing. Just like human athletes, horses sustain very minor injuries or develop soreness and need rest. Even with many healthy horses, there will come a point where the physical toll of enough tough races leads to some short- or long-term decline.

It’s why many trainers who see how the rigors of the Triple Crown affect their animals no longer believe that the five-week window fits the context of the sport.

“I’m a big fan of history,” said trainer Brad Cox, who has a 2021 Derby win (via disqualification) on his résumé with Mandaloun. “But to ask them to run a mile and a quarter and have them the best they can be on that particular day, then to turn around and run a mile and three-sixteenths 14 days later, it’s a lot. And I get the whole thing of, ‘If they’re that good, they need to be able to do it,’ but the health and welfare of the horse comes first over tradition.”

Because of the focus on safety and the formation of a federal oversight group called HISA (Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority), the sport is more tightly regulated than it has ever been — perhaps too tightly, some critics say.

Particularly on high-profile race days like the Kentucky Derby or Breeders’ Cup, horses are closely inspected and veterinarians are empowered to scratch them even if the trainer believes they are bringing a perfectly sound animal to the starting gate.

“After you get enough horses (involuntarily) scratched, you realize that if you land on a really good 3-year old, it’s just an unrealistic (situation),” O’Neill said. “Even in your mind, if you think they’re ready to hit all three, you’ve got a lot of regulatory people that are like, ‘Nah, I don’t think so.’ So I think it would parallel what we’re all in right now to space them out a little bit.”

But how far?

Justify is the most recent Triple Crown winner, after claiming the Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes in 2018. (Photo by Erick W. Rasco /Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)

(Erick W. Rasco via Getty Images)

What is the objective?

Cox acknowledged that just adding one week between the Derby and Preakness may not be enough for many trainers. What about another week between the Preakness and Belmont? How about a month in between both? And at what point have you changed the spacing to such a degree that the achievement loses a bit of what made it special and rare?

These are all questions horse racing will need to reckon with, and there are no simple answers. That’s why Brown expects that if a schedule adjustment is made, it will be small, incremental and uncomfortable for so many people rooted in the history of the sport.

“This is such a big thing to change, so I’m not sure how far you can move the goal post here the first time you do it,” Brown said.  “And when you make a big change, what are you looking to achieve exactly? Are you looking to get more Derby horses to run (in the Preakness)? Are you looking to protect the long-term health of the horses exiting the Preakness? Are you looking for viewership? I think the industry needs to clearly define what their main objectives are before you move it and work backwards from there.”

Making the argument more complicated is that a Triple Crown can still be won under the current setup. Justify became the 13th horse to sweep it a mere eight years ago, and there’s no reason to believe Sovereignty would have been any different last year given that the Preakness winner, Journalism, has never finished in front of him in three tries.

At the same time, about six weeks after Justify’s Belmont win, he developed a leg injury and was retired. If Mott had pushed Sovereignty to run in all three, would he have had enough juice in the batteries to win a couple big races later in the year?

We’ll never know, but if the Triple Crown calendar moves for the first time in nearly seven decades, it may be one of the most consequential what-ifs in the history of the sport.

That may be why, when Yahoo Sports asked Mott about it this week, he had little interest in playing the role of trailblazer — even if history might judge him that way.

“I stay out of that debate,” he said. “The way they’ve got it is fine with me. If they ran it for the next 100 years the way they’ve been running it, I have no issue with it whatsoever.”