Kentucky Derby 2026: December is when future winners rest

Starting with the Grade 2, $250,000 Remsen Stakes on Saturday at Aqueduct, four points preps for Kentucky Derby 2026 are scheduled this month. History says they are unlikely to mean much come May.

Since 2001, only four juveniles who stepped into a starting gate for any race in December went on to win the next year’s Derby. Giacomo in 2005, Country House in 2019 and Rich Strike in 2022 were at least 50-1 surprises at Churchill Downs. California Chrome was the true outlier in this trend, winning the last stakes ever at Hollywood Park to begin a six-race streak that carried through the 2014 Derby and Preakness.

Zipse: Talkin may have loud voice in Remsen Stakes.

When it comes to each of this month’s preps, history doubles down on December being an idle month for most Triple Crown contenders. The Los Alamitos Futurity (G2) has not produced a Derby winner since it was moved from Hollywood Park after 2013. The same goes for the Springboard Mile since it began at Remington Park in 2001. It is going on 30 years since Thunder Gulch doubled in the Remsen and the Derby. And even though eventual 80-1 Derby shocker Rich Strike emerged from a fifth-place finish in the Gun Runner, the Oaklawn race was not a points prep at the time.

“I typically give them a break at the end of November,” said Kenny McPeek, who gave Mystik Dan time off from December races en route to winning the 2024 Derby. “I just put a slow period in for most of my youngsters, especially my 2-year-olds turning 3 that have been at it all year. I think it’s a good time of year to regroup a little bit.”

It is not a trend without some close calls in the Derby for December starters. Sierra Leone was nosed out by Dornoch in the 2023 Remsen before he lost to Mystik Dan by the same margin at Churchill Downs. Journalism won the Los Al Futurity 4 1/2 months before he was runner-up to Sovereignty in this year’s Derby.

Infamously left out of a Preakness that was bookended by his Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes victories, Sovereignty did not just take December off. Trainer Bill Mott rested him between victories in the Street Sense (G3) in late October and the Fountain of Youth (G2) in early March, although a mid-winter virus made the break that much longer.

“We were thinking about one race earlier, and he had a fever,” Mott said in April. “We thought we’ll try to map it out so we can get at least two races in him before the Derby. We missed the first one, but we were able to make the Fountain of Youth and Florida Derby (G1). We got two out of the three.”

Back in the sport’s heyday generations ago, winter breaks used to be de rigueur for top-level Thoroughbreds. Then came a period between 1998 and 2000 when Real Quiet, Charismatic and Fusaichi Pegasus all won the Derby with December races on their past performances. That just does not happen much anymore. Sixteen of the last 23 Derby winners had at least an additional month off on either side of their December breaks as 2-year-olds.

After a fifth-place result in a Churchill Downs allowance race, McPeek wiped Mystik Dan’s 2-year-old Kentucky slate clean. Even though it still wound up being a typical five-week break, he started fresh with December training in New Orleans.

“We were able to kind of retool him a little bit at the Fair Grounds,” he said. “When he made his 3-year-old start, it was a monster.”

After finishing fifth Jan. 1 in the Smarty Jones at Oaklawn, Mystik Dan went on to win the Southwest (G3) and finish third in the Arkansas Derby (G1) before his Kentucky Derby triumph.

It is not just December that has been fallow when it comes to Kentucky Derby yields. In its first 41 runnings in Octobers and Novembers, the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile claims only Street Sense in 2006 and Nyquist in 2015 as its Derby-winning graduates. The trend stretches through the Triple Crown. Timber Country in 1995 was the race’s only graduate to win the Preakness, and the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile has yet to produce at Belmont Stakes winner.

These are the records in and around December for Kentucky Derby winners since 2000: