Analysis: The Triple Crown is on life support. Time to shuffle the calendar.
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?
Continue to the original source for the full article.