The Forgotten Triple Crown

Perception is everything. In the current age of racing, there are near endless rationalizations of why a young, sound horse would be retired to stud. Some say business, some say risk management, some say physical ailment, some say mental fortitude of the animal and its drive to compete. The list can go on and on. As racing fans, we get limited information and left to draw our own conclusions. In a recent, very passionate article by HRN’s Brian Zipse, he expresses his concerns about the growing trend of early, unexplained retirement of 3-year old horses and its effect on the industry. As a follow up to Mr. Zipse’s column a thought was proposed to remove the age restriction of the Triple Crown races.

We all love to reflect upon the “good old days” of the Sport of Kings. No matter the decade, the premise is the same. The good old days can be defined as the time when horses were run for the sport of competition, and not because of the potential of the huge sums of money that could be made with the stud value a winner.

Circling back to the idea of a non-age restricted Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont Stakes, this seems like the perfect reason to keep horses in training past the age of three. However, there is another series of races that does exist that has an even smaller fraternity of winners than the 11 horses that have achieved the immortality as an American Turf’s Triple Crown Champion.

The series that I am referencing is made up of the Metropolitan Handicap, the Suburban Handicap, and the Brooklyn Handicap. Appropriately coined as the Handicap Triple Crown, it has also been referenced as the New York Handicap Triple. This series has lost its moment in the spotlight in recent times, however each race on its own is considered a great accomplishment for a horse and potential stallion.

It can be argued that it is more challenging for a horse to win the three handicap races in a single year than it is for a 3-year old to sweep the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont Stakes. In the 122 years that the Handicap Triple Crown has existed, only 4 horses have managed to accomplish the achievement of winning it. Whisk Broom II was the first to sweep the title in 1913. The second horse was Tom Fool in 1953. Further cementing the immortality of Kelso (pictured above), he was the third horse to achieve the feat in 1961. And rounding out the elite group was Fit to Fight in 1984. There are not as many horses aiming at the challenge of the Handicap triple as the 3 year old classics, but there are many of the best horses in our history that have tried and failed. In the 5 consecutive years that Kelso won Horse of the Year, he was only able to achieve the feat once. Forego was never able to string together the three wins in 4 years of trying. Buckpasser, Assault, and In Excess all managed to win two of the three, but were unable to complete the sweep.

The handicap races are not contested over the same 5-week timespan of the Triple Crown for 3 year olds, and all the races are run in the same state. Throughout history they have ranged in distance, and been held at various locations across New York, but the task has never been considered “easier” to accomplish. To win the Handicap Triple Crown in today’s age, the horse must be able to demonstrate the speed to win the 8 furlong Metropolitan (aka Met Mile), the class to carry that speed over the 9 furlong distance of the Suburban, and the stamina to stay a full tour of the dirt track at Big Sandy for the 12 furlong Brooklyn. To add further difficulty, under handicap conditions, each race will be contested with the horse carrying sequentially increased weights. There is also the lack of age restrictions, which helps create and continue the rivalries that fans love, and competition that proves a horse’s mettle.

I do believe removing the age restriction of the standard Triple Crown could help racing keep its horses in training. However, rather than change one of the greatest traditions in our sport, I would like to suggest that racing, specifically the NYRA, market something else. Imagine if each of these handicap races carried a Grade 1 status and had a purse to match that of their younger counterparts.

Currently the Met Mile is the only Grade 1 in the series, and also carries the largest purse at $750,000. But the Suburban and Brooklyn have lost the prestige that they once held. Each race carries significant weight (no pun intended) toward building a future stallion’s resume, but wins in the 3-year old Classics are still more desirable. What happened to the times when 3 year olds used the Met Mile as an alternative race to Preakness or Belmont Stakes?

This makes a horse like Shackleford very interesting as a stallion prospect, because he is one of two horses at stud with wins in both Triple Crown series (2011 Preakness Stakes; 2012 Met Mile). The other stallion currently at stud is Lemon Drop Kid (1999 Belmont Stakes; 2000 Brooklyn Handicap). I use both of these horses as examples that ran successful 3-year old campaigns and continued to build on their talents in very successful 4-year old seasons.

Are Holy Bull and Honour and Glory really the last three year olds we’ll ever see win the Met Mile? I certainly hope not, but as long as the publicity, purse money, prestige, and perceived stud value rest in the 3 year old classics, the sport will continue its habit of early retirement of sound and highly talented horses.