History may be on the side of California Chrome

It seems that the popular thinking since the Breeders’ Cup Classic is that Bayern has taken the balance of power for the Three-year-old Championship race away from California Chrome and Shared Belief after his controversial victory. At first blush, that was my thinking as well, but then I started to consider the entire body of work for 2014. California Chrome had an awfully good year, and if his narrow defeat in the Classic is indeed his final race of the season, his seasonal resume may still be enough to top the crop in the minds of a majority of voters.

This all got me thinking about the horses over the years who have won the first two legs of the Triple Crown, and how many of them were rewarded with an Eclipse Award at the end of the year. Here is what I found:

There have been 22 horses prior to California Chrome to win both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness. Of them, 18 were rewarded with a championship. In fact, the four horses that did not win the championship were among the first nine to win at both Churchill and Pimlico, meaning the last 13 times a horse followed up a Derby victory with a Preakness win, they were rewarded with top sophomore honors at the end of the year. The last horse who went to Belmont with immortality on the line, to be denied a championship, was Majestic Prince a whopping 45 years ago.

Arts and Letters was Majestic Prince’s huckleberry back in the spring of 1969, running second to him by a neck in the Derby, and then by a head in the Preakness. After that, Arts and Letters would go undefeated the rest of the season with the following wins: Met Mile, Belmont Stakes, Jim Dandy, Travers, Woodward, and Jockey Club Gold Cup. His average margin of victory in those six big wins was nearly seven lengths. Meanwhile, a less than 100% Majestic Prince only ran one more time after the Preakness, suffering a 5 ½ length defeat to Arts and Letters in the Belmont.

Clearly Bayern can not match the feats of Arts and Letters in the second half of the 1969 season, but perhaps he does not need to. California Chrome, after starting the season with five consecutive stakes wins, lost his final three. His return race in the Pennsylvania Derby was uninspired, but then again his Belmont and Breeders’ Cup Classic were nothing in which to be ashamed. To the contrary, I thought his loss in America’s richest race was excellent.

So the question remains, did Bayern do enough to buck the last forty some odd years of history and snatch an Eclipse Award away from the Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner?

With his victory at the Breeders’ Cup, Bayern became the 10th three-year-old to win to the Classic. Of the first nine, five went on to be named champion. That is the good news for those who support Bayern for an end of the year title, but it goes downhill from there. Of the five Classic winners that were named Three-year-old Champion, none were competing for an Eclipse Award against a dual classic winner. Moreover, Tiznow was the only one from the group not to have won a single Triple Crown race. His main competition for the championship that year was the Kentucky Derby winner, Fusaichi Pegasus, whom struggled home a well beaten 6th behind Tiznow in the Classic.

Like I said, my initial thought process after this year’s Breeders’ Cup was that Bayern would be named champion, but now I am starting to rethink things. California Chrome had an awfully good year, and history would seem to be on his side, as well.