Triple Crown

[stark]

Every year there are suggestions about improving the three races, most often we read about changing the intervals between races.

But if this year is any indication of what horsemen and owners want, perhaps the best thing we can do to improve the triple crown would be to make the third leg a mile and a quarter race forever.

Not many horses can run a mile and a half on dirt anymore, why not just chuck the tradition and make the change?

This years rendition appears to be mighty competitive, let's all enjoy it.

[Miesque1973]

I don't like it one bit. Why call the Belmont the 'test of champions' if there's no test? What kind of credit does the horse get for winning it?

I was very uneasy about the idea of Mystik Dan winning the Preakness and going to the Belmont. The idea of him sweeping it might have been nice, but it would have been an empty triumph, in my opinion. In my list of Belmont winners, I have a "*" next to Tiz the Law for the 2020 Belmont, because the victory was empty. I felt like he had passed the test of wimps (and nothing personal against the horse himself). It was meaningless, or is he advertised as 'Belmont Stakes winner... at 9 furlongs!'. Whoever wins this year will also have a "*" by his name (and should in the record books) on my list, because it's just as empty.

But I am old-fashioned and I like some traditions. Triple Crowns shouldn't be easy to win. Make a sprinters' Triple Crown (and watch them stagger home at six furlongs) if that's what folks want. But leave the original alone.

That's just my opinion. I won't change anybody's mind, I'm sure.

<walks away grumbling>

~Miesque

[stark]

The game has changed, let there be no doubt.

A horse wanting to run a mile and a half on dirt early in his 3yo season is about as rare as a jockey not fighting weight.

Tradition doesn't get us much at the box office, what would this years field look like if it was a mile and a half?

If a 3yo happens to excel at the distance, what's on the horizon for his next race?

[Squeaky]

I could see changing it to a mile and a quarter. But I would like to see a distance crown series for older horses with race up to 2 miles for horses that excel at such as Next.

[Slewfan2]

Nooooo

I don’t support making ANY changes to the TC. It’s supposed to be hard

[stark]

Okay I get it
But please don't complain when we only have a field of three in the starting gate in our near future.

[Curtis]

I don't like it one bit. Why call the Belmont the 'test of champions' if there's no test? What kind of credit does the horse get for winning it?

I was very uneasy about the idea of Mystik Dan winning the Preakness and going to the Belmont. The idea of him sweeping it might have been nice, but it would have been an empty triumph, in my opinion. In my list of Belmont winners, I have a "*" next to Tiz the Law for the 2020 Belmont, because the victory was empty. I felt like he had passed the test of wimps (and nothing personal against the horse himself). It was meaningless, or is he advertised as 'Belmont Stakes winner... at 9 furlongs!'. Whoever wins this year will also have a "*" by his name (and should in the record books) on my list, because it's just as empty.

But I am old-fashioned and I like some traditions. Triple Crowns shouldn't be easy to win. Make a sprinters' Triple Crown (and watch them stagger home at six furlongs) if that's what folks want. But leave the original alone.

That's just my opinion. I won't change anybody's mind, I'm sure.

<walks away grumbling>

~Miesque

I see it this way, taking the two recent TC winners aside--whether one thinks those two were aided or unaided--one of the better relatively recent winners was Palace Malice who basically out-staggered Oxbow. I've seen two separate sets of TC winners and the three in the 1970's all had something in common--a rival or two that they had to beat in all three races. Horses aren't campaigned that way anymore so to me just because they win 3 races at 10f, 9.5f & 12f over a five week period doesn't make them remotely comparable to the 3 from the '70's or the four from the '40's, etc. And what makes a 12f dirt race a Race of Champions? There is one G1 dirt race run at that distance. The Handicap Triple has passed on, the fall championship races are prep races, at least those that still exist. There was once a day when serious turf horses ran in the Man O' War, the Canadian International Championship, the Turf Classic and then the Washington DC International all within 6-7 weeks in the fall. Even if you tried to space them in a way to include the Breeder's Cup, those days are gone. Tell me what the three races that make up the NY Filly TC are or whatever that "series" is now called? All things must pass, the only constant is change. That's my opinion.

[Curtis]

I could see changing it to a mile and a quarter. But I would like to see a distance crown series for older horses with race up to 2 miles for horses that excel at such as Next.

My problem with an older horse distance series is it will inevitably populated with 2nd rate plodders. The only way to avoid that would be, for instance, NYRA to move the Jockey Club Gold Cup to very late November or early December and to give it a huge purse bump--to 8-10M, maybe. You could include a couple of earlier 12f and 13f races and give a bonus to a horse that sweeps them. The trouble with the BC Marathon race was that you were never going to get a top horse in it. The big guns were always going to go after the $$ in the BC Classic. We have these romantic memories of Nashua, Kelso, Buckpasser, Damascus, Shuvee (by Nashua), Forego, etc. winning the 16f JCGC, and they all did win it. But if you look back most of the beaten fields were the "distance horses" of the day. There was a nice marathoner in the early 1970's named Paraje. I want to say Paraje won the Display Handicap at Aqueduct 3 consecutive years. That race was always run on New Year's Eve twice around the course at 2 &1/4M. I think he ran in the JCGC 3 maybe even 4 times and I think he might have finished 2nd to Shuvee in one of those runnings. When the top shelf horses ran against him, even at his game, he couldn't compete. The champion horses I mentioned towered over horses like Paraje in class and the reason those champions ran in the race is there was no other race to point to that competed with it and the purse was good. Honestly horses don't run enough and specialize too much to make it work.

[stark]

If a 3YO were to be named HOY chances are very good it would be because he won the BC Classic at a mile and a quarter.
There's really very little reason to run a mile and a half in June.

[Starine]

Okay I get it
But please don't complain when we only have a field of three in the starting gate in our near future.

The Belmont has always been well supported. It's the Preakness that often comes up lighter on entries.

[Miesque1973]

Yeesh. I've posted twice in this thread and they both vanished. So I give up. But I know that I'm as likely to see Lord Lucan ride through my back yard on Shergar as I am to see American breeders focus on soundness and stamina. That's what really depresses me, along with the idea of making the Triple Crown a meaningless exercise in precocity.

(Of course, I may have hit 'preview' instead of 'submit' a couple of times. It's been a long day. Well, really, a long week.)

~Miesque

[stark]

Okay I get it
But please don't complain when we only have a field of three in the starting gate in our near future.

The Belmont has always been well supported. It's the Preakness that often comes up lighter on entries.

Looking at this year's field I just can't imagine more than 4 maybe 5 that would have signed up.

[Thumbsucker]

Dumbing down the Triple Crown will only hurt U.S. breeding in the long run. Our horses already have trouble competing on the international stage as it is. The shortening of the races for older horses is bad enough. Most of the horses winning the races for older horses are not genuine stamina horses and it gets worse ever year. Those who do have stamina like Next are gelded before they can show their real ability, just because they couldn't be ready for the Triple Crown. These TC trainers need to learn how to actually develope a horse and I think too few want to do it the right way.

[Tessablue]

The 12f Belmont has had fantastic fields full of high-quality horses in the past three years. The distance has changed out of necessity at times, but it is clearly now the main target for top 3yos after the Derby, and it is in no danger of needing to change.

The TC is fine as-is, but it's also not some perfect sanctified thing. The last TC winner was DQ'd from the race that qualified him for the event, so it's hard to feel particularly outraged by other changes in comparison. You may as well add an asterisk if the TC winner faced bad opponents... and in that case, most of them would have an asterisk anyways.

[Cigarillo]

Add a week between the Derby and Preakness and move the Belmont back a week. I know that'll mess up the NY race schedule but for the sake of the Triple Crown as a whole, I see benefits. I think the Preakness would benefit and all three races would be of better quality.

Also, leave the Belmont at 12f.

[stark]

Okay the votes are in.....

117-1

Looks like it'll be a mile and a half in the future by popular demand.

Now we can get back to the important stuff....

Where's Bezos?

[Curtis]

Okay the votes are in.....

117-1

Looks like it'll be a mile and a half in the future by popular demand.

Now we can get back to the important stuff....

Where's Bezos?

I dunno, but can he get 12f?

[Squeaky]

Okay the votes are in.....

117-1

Looks like it'll be a mile and a half in the future by popular demand.

Now we can get back to the important stuff....

Where's Bezos?

I voted with you-117-2

[stark]

Okay the votes are in.....

117-1

Looks like it'll be a mile and a half in the future by popular demand.

Now we can get back to the important stuff....

Where's Bezos?

I voted with you-117-2

[Curtis]

Okay the votes are in.....

117-1

Looks like it'll be a mile and a half in the future by popular demand.

Now we can get back to the important stuff....

Where's Bezos?

I voted with you-117-2

I didn’t vote, per se, but my rant favored a 10f Belmont. I just don’t like starting on a turn. I propose they move the finish line so they can start straight and finish on the turn.