Winning the Triple Crown is basically impossible. We say that every year, but honestly, looking at the history of the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes, it’s a miracle anyone has ever done it. It’s a grueling five-week sprint through three different states that breaks even the best athletes. You’ve got to have a horse that is fast, durable, and frankly, lucky enough to avoid a bad trip in a 20-horse field at Churchill Downs.
The three races for the Triple Crown represent a specific kind of American sports masochism.
Most people don’t realize how much the sport changed after Affirmed won in 1978. There was a 37-year drought. Decades. Fans started thinking the feat was a relic of the past, like black-and-white TV or leaded gasoline. Then American Pharoah showed up in 2015 and reminded everyone that it could be done, followed quickly by Justify in 2018. But even with those modern anomalies, the structure of these races remains the ultimate test of a thoroughbred’s soul.
The Derby: Where Dreams Go to Die in the Mud
It all starts on the first Saturday in May. The Kentucky Derby is "The Run for the Roses," but for the jockeys, it’s a chaotic nightmare. You have 20 horses—the largest field they will ever face—shoved into a starting gate while 150,000 people scream their heads off. It’s loud. It’s dusty.
The distance is 1 1/4 miles. That is a long way for a three-year-old horse that, only a few months prior, was basically a teenager finding its legs. If a horse doesn't have the "tactical speed" to get out of the gate and find a spot near the rail without getting checked or bumped, the Triple Crown dream ends before the first turn.
Look at Rich Strike in 2022. He was an 80-1 longshot. He didn’t even know he was running until a few minutes before the deadline. Then, he wove through traffic like a madman to win. That’s the Derby. It’s not always the best horse that wins; it’s the one that survives the chaos of 20 animals charging toward a single point.
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Two Weeks Later: The Preakness Pressure Cooker
If you survive Louisville, you head to Pimlico in Baltimore. The Preakness Stakes is shorter—1 3/16 miles. Because it's shorter, the speed is higher. The turns are tighter.
This is where the fatigue starts to set in. Two weeks is not enough time for a horse to fully recover from a maximum effort at the Derby. Most modern trainers hate this schedule. In any other part of the year, a trainer would give a horse four to six weeks between starts. But the three races for the Triple Crown don't care about your recovery metrics.
The Preakness is often the "gatekeeper" race. It’s where the Derby winner has to prove they weren't just a fluke. Think about California Chrome or I'll Have Another. They conquered the Derby and the Preakness, looking like gods, only to hit a wall later. The Preakness tests pure grit. It’s a blue-collar race in a crumbling Baltimore stadium, and if a horse has a "bounce" (a regression in performance after a peak), it happens here.
The Belmont Stakes: The Test of the Champion
Then comes the monster. The Belmont Stakes.
It is 1 1/2 miles long. They call it "The Big Sandy." The track is enormous. In fact, the Belmont track is so big that jockeys often lose their sense of timing. They move too early, thinking they are closer to the finish than they actually are, and the horse runs out of gas in the final furlong.
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This is where the "New Shooters" come in. These are horses that skipped the Preakness—or maybe even the Derby—and are fresh. They are waiting in New York with rested legs, ready to pounce on a Derby/Preakness winner that has traveled thousands of miles and run two heart-stopping races in 14 days.
When Secretariat won the Belmont in 1973 by 31 lengths, he wasn't just running against other horses. He was running against physics. His time of 2:24 for the 1.5 miles still stands today. Nobody has even come close. To put that in perspective, most winners today finish in 2:27 or 2:28. Three or four seconds is an eternity in horse racing. It’s the difference between a legend and a footnote.
Why the Triple Crown is Harder Now Than Ever
- Breeding for Speed, Not Distance: Modern thoroughbreds are bred to be Ferraris, not Land Rovers. They are incredibly fast over short distances but often lack the bone density and stamina of horses from the 1940s.
- The Fresh Horse Problem: In the "Golden Age," the same horses ran in all three races. Today, trainers "target" specific races. A horse might skip the Preakness just to have an edge in the Belmont, which many purists think is kinda cheap, but it’s smart business.
- The Schedule: There is constant talk about moving the Preakness to late May and the Belmont to July. Purists hate this. They say it ruins the "test." If you change the timing, you aren't winning the same Triple Crown that Citation or Seattle Slew won.
The Real Numbers Behind the Legend
Since 1875, thousands of horses have tried. Only 13 have succeeded.
- Sir Barton (1919)
- Gallant Fox (1930)
- Omaha (1935)
- War Admiral (1937)
- Whirlaway (1941)
- Count Fleet (1943)
- Assault (1946)
- Citation (1948)
- Secretariat (1973)
- Seattle Slew (1977)
- Affirmed (1978)
- American Pharoah (2015)
- Justify (2018)
Between 1978 and 2015, thirteen different horses won the first two legs but failed at the Belmont. Think about that. Thirteen times, the entire world tuned in to see history, only to see a tired horse stumble in the final 200 yards. Real Quiet lost by a nose in 1998. Smarty Jones broke everyone's heart in 2004.
Actionable Insights for the Next Racing Season
If you're looking to actually understand or even wager on the three races for the Triple Crown, stop looking at just the speed figures. Speed figures tell you how fast a horse ran on a specific day, but they don't tell you how a horse handles stress.
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First, watch the "gallop out" after the Derby. When the race is over, does the winner keep running strongly for another quarter mile, or do they stop immediately? A horse that wants to keep going is a prime candidate for the Belmont.
Second, look at the pedigree. If a horse is sired by a sprinter (someone who won at 6 furlongs), they are almost guaranteed to collapse at the Belmont. You want to see names like Tapit or Curlin in the bloodline—horses known for producing "stayers" who can handle the grueling 12 furlongs in New York.
Finally, pay attention to the trainer's history at Pimlico. Some trainers, like Bob Baffert or D. Wayne Lukas, have a "system" for the short turnaround. They know how to keep a horse's energy peaked without overtraining.
The Triple Crown isn't just a series of races. It’s a war of attrition. To win, a horse has to be more than just fast. They have to be invincible for five weeks. And as history shows us, invincibility is a very rare thing in this sport.
To stay ahead of the curve for the upcoming season, start tracking the "Road to the Kentucky Derby" points standings in late January. Look for horses that are winning their prep races while "under wraps"—meaning the jockey hasn't even had to use the whip yet. Those are the animals with the extra gear necessary to survive the most difficult five weeks in all of sports.