Another Kentucky Derby winner not in the Preakness reignites debate about Triple Crown changes

BALTIMORE — Sovereignty is not running out of that starting gate in the Preakness Stakes on Saturday, two weeks after winning the Kentucky Derby. Yet he is still the talk of Pimlico Race Course this week.

That is because owners and trainer Bill Mott opted to skip the Preakness and with it a chance at the Triple Crown because of the short turnaround. It is the second time in four years the Derby winner is not taking part for that reason, and the fifth time in seven years overall, the Preakness goes on with no Triple Crown on the line.

The trend has reignited the debate about what, if anything needs to change with the Triple Crown, with ideas ranging from putting more space between the Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes to adding incentives to run in all three to changing the order of the races altogether. Like starters in baseball throwing fewer pitchers, elite horses now typically get much longer time between races, and the situation has put tradition and modernization of the sport head to head.

The two-week turnaround now feels to many around the sport like an antiquated schedule when longer gaps are now the norm with an eye toward horse wear and tear and better performance. Thoroughbreds used to be trained and run at a much quicker interval.

“It’s a question that has more than one side to it,” said Steve Asmussen, who has won more races than any other trainer in North America. “I love how hard it is to do, which makes it so special. And then would it be making it easier? Does it dilute it? That’s a great question. And I think that it’ll continue to be debated.”

The debate

It was debated constantly during the 37-year drought between Triple Crown champions from Affirmed in 1978 until Bob Baffert-trained American Pharoah swept the three races in 2015. Baffert’s Justify did it in 2018, too, and the chorus of voices calling for change was quieted.

But then, for various reasons, there has been a Triple Crown chance in the Preakness only twice in the past seven years. The biggest draw of the middle leg — the anticipation for the possibility — went from being automatic to anything but.

“It is troubling, and it has been troubling for several years,” said Jerry Bailey, a Hall of Fame jockey who won each of the three races twice and is now an NBC Sports analyst. “It’s completely flip-flopped from my generation when it was the rule that they would run back and the exception that they wouldn’t.”

Many top trainers, including Baffert, D. Wayne Lukas, Mark Casse and Michael McCarthy have run a Derby horse in the Preakness or will this year. Others, like Mott, Chad Brown, Todd Pletcher and Brad Cox, are more reluctant to take the risk.

“We need them in the game,” said Casse, who won the Preakness in 2019 with War of Will and has Sandman this year. “This is important. We want the best horses for our sport.”

When Asmussen won a Triple Crown race for the first time with Curlin in the 2007 Preakness, it came after his horse finished third behind Street Sense and Hard Spun in the Kentucky Derby. Curlin, Street Sense and Hard Spun went 1-2-3 in the Preakness.

“We are definitely running on a very different environment than we were then,” Asmussen said. “Every horse is an individual, every year is different, and it’s just very unique circumstances.”