How Difficult is Winning the American Triple Crown for Thoroughbreds?

They have come and gone in dozens now, these three-year-old Thoroughbreds, the one chance American Triple Crown hopefuls.

The American Triple Crown of Thoroughbred horse-racing for three-year-olds who are in just their second year of competitive racing is comprised of these three races: The Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs race track, Louisville, Kentucky on the first Saturday in May, 1-1/4 miles; the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Maryland two weeks later, 1-3/16 miles; and the Belmont Stakes three weeks hence at Belmont Park in Elmont, New York, 1-1/2 miles.

The best trainers of the modern era (since last Triple Crown champion Affirmed won in 1978) have all come up empty in their quest to win all three races with a single horse. Many of them, however, have had several horses win one, or two of the races in their three-year-old campaigns.

Says master thoroughbred trainer Bobby Frankel of the Triple Crown races' unpredictability: "Things happen. Horses stumble."

One of the winningest Thoroughbred jockeys of all time, Jerry Bailey, comments: "...a little case of ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder)" can spoil the day. Horses lose their focus in longer races. They become too aggressive, less aggressive, have an off day, and...well, they just can't win every time, jockeys and trainers agree.

Thoroughbreds are asked to run three races in six weeks' time to win the Triple. A lifetime of hope is built and dashed in a schedule so grueling for three-year-old entrants that some trainers think it's a modern day impossibility. Says trainer D.Wayne Lukas, author of a record 13 wins within the Triple Crown series, but no single-year, three-race champion: "When we train horses, time is our ally. And we don't get the time (in the present Triple Crown schedule)."

Top trainer Lukas is the boldest in suggesting a new Triple Crown format. His idea is: make the Kentucky Derby 1-1/8 miles, the Preakness three weeks later at the current distance of 1-3/16 miles, and run the Belmont three weeks hence at 1-1/4 miles. That would spread out the time allowed for preparation, and eliminate altogether the struggle of 1-1/2 miles at Belmont. The present 1-1/2 miles of the Belmont Stakes is a distance not asked of a three-year-old before, or after the Triple Crown races.

Frankel watched Spectacular Bid, a sure bet Super Star, lose in 1979 at Belmont.

Three times, trainer Bob Baffert's horses won the first two races of the Triple, only to lose at Belmont Park in the last one. His War Emblem was a sure thing in 2002, but when the colt stumbled out of the gate, he never got back into the race. In 1997, Baffert's Silver Charm failed to complete the Triple at Belmont, and in 1998, Real Quiet did the same.

Lukas' Charismatic had the Triple wrapped up in the 1999 Belmont. The chestnut misstepped at the last instant to show only third. He actually suffered a fractured left front ankle beyond the finish wire, but fortunately was able to recover over time.

The list of Derby and Preakness winners who failed at Belmont is long. Here are five more: 1981, Pleasant Colony, third; 1987, Alysheba, third; 1989, Sunday Silence, second; 2003, Funny Cide, third; 2004, Smarty Jones, second.

Says Baffert: "It's like a championship game...There is no holding back on anything. You have to be aggressive and hope the wheels stay on."

In 2004, Derby and Preakness champ Smarty Jones was well in the lead at Belmont, and the racing world was breathless as he charged home. He had already set expectations at a level not seen since Secretariat took Belmont by storm. But as Smarty drew further into that long Belmont backstretch, it became apparent that he was getting gassed from flying through the earlier furlongs at top speeds. Little Birdstone, skillfully saved by jockey Edgar Prado, breezed on by Smarty to take the victory. So high were the expectations for Smarty to become the twelveth American Triple Crown champion that Prado offered an apology for winning aboard Birdstone.

Lukas agrees that traditionalists would "scream" about changing the Triple Crown format to his suggested version. But he adds, "...these would be the same people who kicked about the three-point line that is so popular now in basketball."

Veteran trainer John Ward says his 2001 Kentucky Derby champ, Monarchos, was in a "daze" by the time he had run the present Triple schedule. Monarchos ran sixth in the Preakness, and third in the Belmont, ending his three-year-old campaign. At 4, he ran third at Gulfstream Park (Florida) in an allowance race, and then was retired, an apparent victim of exhaustion.

"They are mentally tired from putting in those big efforts," Ward says. "It's like football players who win the Super Bowl. They have to get up for the next season, for that effort again."

Changing the Triple Crown format, however, according to Triple Crown champion Secretariat's owner, Penny Chenery, would "...shoot all your records. Nothing would be comparable. You'd have to be an asterick."

Concludes Frankel: "It shouldn't be easy."

And, indeed, it isn't. Only eleven horses in Thoroughbred history have won all three races of the coveted American Triple Crown. They are: Sir Barton, 1919 (first time the title Triple Crown was applied); Gallant Fox, 1930; his son, Omaha, 1935; Man o' War's son, War Admiral, 1937; Whirlaway, 1941; Count Fleet, 1943; Assault, 1946; Citation, 1948; Secretariat, 1973; Seattle Slew, 1977; and Affirmed, 1978.

In the spring of Thoroughbred racing, trainers and owners of Triple Crown prospects gear up their racing schedules, eyeball the competition, and plan a game for their horses that, in the end, rests half way in the lap of Lady Luck. Such is the risky path toward the prized American Triple Crown championship.

And in the real world, no real consideration of a change of format to the Triple title is a reality. It's likely that tradition will always win the day as the first Saturday in May approaches.

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Sources: The USA Today newspaper, The Blood-Horse magazine