Originally Posted by joeydb (Post 728919)

I hope Steve gets Satish Sanan to talk about it on this week's appearance.

Originally Posted by hockey2315 (Post 728853)

You all need to get a grip.

Originally Posted by trackrat59 (Post 728968)

Let me guess, you're in your 20's and have not been at this for more than 8 years.

Originally Posted by tector (Post 729003)

Old traditions die, new traditions are born. If MD racing croaks--and maybe it should--what is the frigging point of keeping the Preakness in MD? The haven't played the Super Bowl in L.A. since it became a town without a team.

If there is change, I imagine it could involve trying to prop up the big three racing jurisdictions, so (obviously) you keep the Derby as is; put a middle race at SA, say 3 weeks later. Then run the Belmont a month after that.
Of course there is nothing to prevent PA or WV from trying to pull a "Garden State 1985", either, so there will have to be some kind of sizable TC bonus system, and not just for a sweep. Everyone will always say of a TC winner "Oh, it's not like the Triple Crown of the old days!" True enough, but that is reality--today's horses, for better or worse (I say the latter, obviously) are NOT like the horses of yesteryear. Deal with it.

I am fine if things stay as they are. But if they don't, it can be fine, too.

Originally Posted by Indian Charlie (Post 729009)

The Preakness is run during the HP meet. Preakness on Cushion? NO thanks.

Originally Posted by slotdirt (Post 729010)

No way the middle leg of the Triple Crown would ever be run anywhere but on an East Coast track. From a travel and geography perspective, no other scenario makes much sense.

Originally Posted by slotdirt (Post 729014)

I think there's as much chance they'll have the middle jewel of the Triple Crown in Dubai as Santa Anita. All of this discussion is silly anyway as the Preakness isn't moving from Maryland, like ever.

Originally Posted by slotdirt (Post 729014)

I think there's as much chance they'll have the middle jewel of the Triple Crown in Dubai as Santa Anita. All of this discussion is silly anyway as the Preakness isn't moving from Maryland, like ever.

Originally Posted by smartbid09 (Post 728838)

You can't change what tracks the triple crown is contested over!

If you move the Preakness Stakes to another track than there is no longer a Triple Crown to be won. Why? Because than you are changing the accomplishment of winning the triple crown. What the general public doesn't understand is that horses win 3 races in a row at 3 different race tracks all the time. But not all race track pose the same obstacles as Churchill, Pimlico and Belmont. The accomplishment of sweeping the triple crown is doing it over these three race tracks. These three races at their current distances over there current tracks test a horse in a way they could never be tested otherwise. Every race track has it's own unique obstacles for horses to overcome. The 11 super horses who swept the Triple Crown did so over the same three tracks while overcoming each individual tracks obstacles. If you move the Preakness Stakes to a new track than the a horse is no longer being tested in the same way as the previous 11 triple crown winners. Thus they are sweeping a new series.

Sure you COULD run the Preakness Stakes at another race track, but if a horse were to win the Derby at Churchill, The Belmont Stakes at Belmont Park, and the Preakness Stakes at, say, Santa Anita Park than that horse would have swept a different Triple Crown than the previous 11 did. That Horse would have been tested differently. The unique thing about running the races as they are now where they are now is that it urges a horse to be special. No horse has ever accidentally won the triple crown in it's current form.

Thorough out the history of the Triple Crown in America things have not always been a constant. For example at one time the Preakness Stakes was run before the Kentucky Derby. Other non-constants have been distances. When Sir Barton won the Kentucky Derby he did so by winning at a different distance than the race is currently held at. But one of the things that has been a constant is that the three triple crown races were always held at there current three tracks. You MUST sweep the crown at Churchill, Pimlico and Belmont! If not you have not been tested the same way as the horses who have previously won the triple crown.

Originally Posted by pointman (Post 729152)

The Belmont Stakes was run at Aqueduct from 1963 to 1967, a very different configuration than Belmont, which in no way diminished the series.