Preakness 2026: Q&A with NBC Sports’ Randy Moss about Triple Crown schedule

NBC Sports analyst Randy Moss, who understands the horse racing landscape as well as anyone, wants to start with a brief history lesson.

Once upon a time, the Kentucky Derby’s top three finishers all regularly opted to run it back two weeks later in the Preakness. In the past 17 years, it’s happened only once.

This year’s Derby winner, Golden Tempo, opted out of the Preakness.

“The trends are cratering. The Triple Crown as we know it, as we loved it, where the best 3-year-olds are tested against each other,” Moss sighed, “it’s in intensive care. And unfortunately, there’s no doctor right now waiting in the hallway.”

The hypothetical doctor would be a governing body for the sport. Horse racing doesn’t have that. There is no single entity with the power to rethink the 35 days and thus encourage greater participation.

Preakness has been abandoned as the neglected middle child. To make matters worse, a $400 million renovation this year is moving the middle jewel to Laurel Park, slashing attendance (capped at about 4,800) and the infield festivities (a Preakness staple). Laurel won’t have a Triple Crown contender to offset losses.

Any confluence of racing dates would require the Maryland Jockey Club and the New York Racing Association to strike a joint agreement. The former is inclined to reschedule because, as Bill Mott, the trainer who opted not to bring Sovereignty to Pimlico last year, said recently, “Nobody talks about the Preakness.” The latter hasn’t previously been willing to budge.

So, point the finger at the New York Racing Association, Moss said, “the ones benefitting the most from the current setup,” because nowadays all the Derby’s top horses skip the Preakness and run in New York on five weeks’ rest.

Moss spoke with The Baltimore Sun about why the Triple Crown calendar hasn’t budged, why that might soon change and why trainers have started caring more in recent years.

(Editor’s note: Some questions and answers have been lightly edited for clarity.)

Q: I’ve seen several ideas for how the Triple Crown calendar could change, whether it’s push everyone back one week or one race per month over three months. Randy, what do you think makes the most sense?

A: What made the Triple Crown special was never the spacing. It was always the best horses of a particular generation coming back to run against each other, and that is no longer happening.

NYRA has proposed a three-week gap between the Derby and the Preakness. If that moves the needle at all, it’ll move it an inch. I talked to trainers about spacing and all this. They’re just about as loathed to run their horses back in three weeks as they are in two weeks. I have trainers tell me they don’t want to run back in four weeks. They would rather have five or six weeks in between races.

That would be maybe too much change right now for the Triple Crown. But the concept that some people have offered of Derby on first Saturday in May, Preakness on the first Saturday in June and the Belmont either on the first or second Saturday in July, would work much better than the current scenario.

Can you explain why that is and how horse training has changed over the years?

There’s a combination of two things. Number one, it’s training philosophies right now that have changed. But you have to look at why training philosophies have changed. Owners and trainers would love if they could run their horse every week. I mean, imagine how much more money they would make if you could run your horse every week or every two weeks, and the horse would run just as well as they do now.

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Trainers believe — and it’s basically a widespread assumption that’s considered to be the gospel truth in racing — that race horses bigger, stronger, faster because of selective breeding — have become more fragile. They’ve almost become too fast for their own good. So they have to be handled differently, the trainers believe. That drives the decision by the trainers that two weeks is counterproductive to the best interest of the horses themselves.

There’s another reason to believe change may be imminent: Churchill Downs Incorporated agreed to buy the intellectual property for the Preakness Stakes and Black-Eyed Susan Stakes from 1/ST Racing. Could that help push for change?

They don’t invest $85 million without the intent to make money. They look at the Preakness Stakes as an underperforming asset. Not just the Preakness Stakes, but the undercard races surrounding the Preakness on Friday and Saturday. The only reason they see it as an underperforming asset is because they know, historically, what those races have meant in the past. They understand that the spacing between the races is the key element to bringing the Preakness and the Preakness undercard races back to where they were before. And in the recent past, Churchill has stepped back and refused to get involved. They basically took the attitude like we don’t have a dog in this hunt. This is between the Preakness and the Belmont. Now, Churchill has put its money on the table. The hope is that Churchill Downs Incorporated, which has been very aggressive in protecting its investment, will be similarly aggressive in insisting that the spacing of the three races gets changed.

The 2026 Preakness marks the final year of NBC Sports’ broadcasting deal. Could that play a role in solving this issue?

Obviously, NBC would love to keep the Preakness Stakes. We love the Preakness. But it’s a business decision that the Maryland Jockey Club — perhaps in conjunction with Churchill Downs, but maybe not — has to make on their own. Regardless of who winds up televising the Preakness Stakes, for the good of the sport, the spacing needs to be changed.

Right now, the New York Racing Association is using the spacing of the races and using its willingness to move the Belmont Stakes as a bargaining chip with Maryland regarding the TV contract. I guess that falls under the category of business. But what New York is proposing is to move it just a tweak to try to lessen the disruption to its own stakes schedule. New York is prioritizing its own house over the neighborhood. Regardless of who has the TV rights, that spacing is not sufficient.

Have a news tip? Contact Sam Cohn at scohn@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/samdcohn.x.com. Sam appears as a host on The Sun’s “Early Birds” podcast.