Triple Crown

[stark]

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.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, move some of these races like the Derby and the Belmont to Santa Anita and all but eliminate the off-track and distance factors.

[Curtis]

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.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, move some of these races like the Derby and the Belmont to Santa Anita and all but eliminate the off-track and distance factors.

I’m not so much anti tradition, I’m just a realist. Clinging to a 12f Belmont with the belief it’s going to preserve American breeding is faulty. Yes it’s had some good fields recently—well full—but it’s not because it’s 12f, it’s in spite of it being 12f. If you want to win a Classic, didn’t win the Derby and don’t like the 2 week turnaround of the Preakness, what are your choices? You suck it up and send your horse to the staggerfest. I don’t know that the field sizes at 10f would be different than at 12f but the contention will run deeper. The only argument I can make for 12f being a good thing is it gives some mediocre—Ruler on Ice—types a shot.

[Thumbsucker]

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.

Change that doesn't make the game better won't help the game or the breed. Why do you think so many horses supposed bred to get a distance don't? Because they aren't truly bred to get a classic distance. Too many of these sires aren't stamina horses and their offspring are the proof. Leave the TC alone and these false sires will drop to the wayside like they should. Nobody is going to keep paying big money for horses the don't produce the needed product. Keep shortening the races and kill the golden goose.

[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.

Change that doesn't make the game better won't help the game or the breed. Why do you think so many horses supposed bred to get a distance don't? Because they aren't truly bred to get a classic distance. Too many of these sires aren't stamina horses and their offspring are the proof. Leave the TC alone and these false sires will drop to the wayside like they should. Nobody is going to keep paying big money for horses the don't produce the needed product. Keep shortening the races and kill the golden goose.

The game has always changed. It isn’t so much about shortening the distance as it is getting horse people to enter the three races. What’s happening now isn’t working. As I stated, the TC that American Pharoah and Justify won was different than the 3 from the ‘70’s. Other than ease of travel, the ‘70’s trio hadn’t differed too much from the 4 from the 1940’s. Winning the TC is like hitting the lottery. I really don’t think breeders are trying to breed to hit that lottery.

[sweettalk]

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.

not like secretariat's belmont gate was full, so it could be worse.