Tom Chuckas on Preakness/TC Spacing
 

http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-raci...-crown-spacing

:rolleyes:

Saw the article earlier but didn't bother to read....seems an earlier than usual make a change call.

You know what makes the Triple Crown so great? It's because it's so hard to win and should be reserved for great horses, not just good ones. There have been plenty opportunities for someone to sweep in the last bunch of years and none were good enough to pull it off. Imo if they spread the dates out it won't mean the same.

With the way horses are run today and the new Belmont day card, they have to be seeing the writing on the wall regarding the quality of horses the undercard stakes will draw going forward.

The quality of the undercard races at the Preakness has not been that strong over the past decade. I think this has more to do with the trend of a dwindling number of Derby horses returning for the Preakness, with the perception being that the Preakness is the "weak link" of the Triple Crown series. Ironically, in recent years, the Preakness has been a better barometer for 3YO champion than either the Derby or the Belmont.

The little attention horse racing already gets will be watered down even more if the TC is spread out 3-4 months. By the time the Belmont Stakes comes around in August, people will already forget about who won the Kentucky Derby.

Imagine if Baseball Basketball and Football had a 4 month playoffs. People would get tired of it real fast.

Worst idea.

It doesn't matter if today's horses are slow. There will always be a winner, and the Preakness field this year is not too bad. One of the best challenges of winning the Triple Crown is that new horses come in for the second leg.

They should bring back the bonus money for running in all 3 races, based on points. Make it enticing for both owner and trainers. If I recall Alysheba won the first two legs, but Bet Twice won the bonus because he won the Belmont and ran In the money the first 2 legs and had more points because Alysheba ran out in Belmont.

Who said anything about spreading the TC out 3-4 months? They are only talking about adding one more week between races. Instead of 2 weeks between the Derby and Preakness, it would be 3 weeks. I don't know if they would add an extra week between the Preakness and Belmont.

yeah, i mentioned that bonus in another thread a few weeks back. would love to see it started again.

maybe they should start a points system for the eclipse awards, rather than doing by vote. rather than perception being reality, you'd have successes on the track produce your top 3 yo and older horses.

you might want to re-read the article. he wants the preakness moved to the first wknd in june, and the belmont to the first wknd in july.


i can see his point, to a point. pimlico doesn't get the carryover of horses moving on to md, and he thinks it's due to the spacing.
then again, it might be due to the racing and purses offered. i don't know that moving preakness day would suddenly induce horsemen to run on the undercard because you have to have a good undercard. it has to be worth their while to ship there.
also, how many horses who skip the preakness go to the belmont? i'm sure many skip both of the other jewels, and take a break before going elsewhere, or dropping to some of the lower level races.

more spacing wouldn't make a triple crown easier. i think it would make it more difficult actually. a lot of good horses that don't run well in the derby don't come back for the preakness because it's only two weeks. whereas if it were a month, they would be much more likely to come back for a shot at the preakness which would make the field stronger. and the undercard would be much better too. i can't blame Chuckas for wanting more spacing from the derby. Pimlico gets short shrift the way it is now.

that's just it, i don't know that moving the preakness would mean one more horse would step into the gate that ran in the derby.
a lot of people run horses in the derby just as a 'throw it at the wall, see if it sticks' type move. many drop out of the stakes ranks altogether after kentucky.
if chuckas wants a bigger day on preakness day, he needs to make the other stakes worth coming too, instead of just counting on the preakness to make or break him.
make the black eyed susan a bigger race, move it to saturday. do like belmont did, with moving the met mile. he has to make the whole day a derby-type day. offer large purses, big races, do some schedule jiggling. he could offer a nice tune up race to the met mile in three weeks, he needs to try to appeal more to those who would look at maryland as a springboard to the big day in three weeks. live with the spacing from derby day, and instead focus on offering something that would induce people to run here as a move to ny in three weeks. it's a perfect spacing for that day.

i agree with you on how to make preakness day a bigger day. and wouldn't it be easier to attract top horses(i.e. Wise Dan) if the preakness was 4 weeks after the derby? zero top horses that run on the undercard of the derby are going to run two weeks later. make it 4 weeks and you're gonna get some...especially if the purses are nice.

what i'm saying is instead of trying to appeal to the other horses who ran derby day, they need to work backwards from what the belmont has scheduled for 3 weeks later. their day is a good fit for what will happen in ny.
moving it to a month later won't necessarily help them, and there's a lot of resistance to it. and i don't know that all derby horses would show back up regardless of when the preakness is.

also, not all top horses are there on derby day, and a lot of top stables operate based on nyra and its schedule-so fill a niche with those people. they can draw top horses if they do it right. but just kvetching about the schedule isn't a way to make the preakness and undercard better.

look at their offerings in the other threads those two days. they need to shake things up. not every horse going to belmont on belmont stakes day runs in ky five weeks before. they need to re-do their races. they need preps for 3 weeks later, good purses, etc.

dunno. 7f, a mile?
but in looking over the cards that steve has posted, there's nothing that could be construed as a prep for the met mile. what, the special is the only for older on dirt, and it's 1 3/16.
i know the mile just moved, but now pimlico has a good reason to make at least one change.

i'd rather they try to fix the card than just say they want to change dates. and it's probably more doable at this point.

that's part of the stickiness of it. they would need cooperation from belmont for it to work. personally, i think it would be ideal if all 3 triple crown races were spaced 4 weeks apart. of course that would cause a domino effect in stakes scheduling not only for churchill, pimlico and belmont, but saratoga, monmouth, etc. as well. i really think it could work though. imo, there are too many stakes races. a major scheduling re-haul is needed. less stakes races = higher quality stakes. as for derby horses returning for the preakness - no, not all of them would. but i believe more would than do now....just because trainers are much more comfortable running 4 weeks apart than 2.

You are right. He wants an extra two weeks between each race. With regards to whether we would get more TC winners if there was extra time between races, I don't think there is any question. When a horse wins the first two legs, it is usually because he's the best horse. How many of those have we had over the last 35 years? There have been at least 10. I think it is a safe bet to say at least a couple of those would have won the TC if there would have been more time between races. Some of those horses lost the Belmont because they were so knocked out after the first two races. That wasn't always the reason or the only reason but it was one of the main factors in many of the cases. I'm not claiming that we would have had 10 TC winners over the last 35 years if there was more time between races. But I think we would have had at least a few.

The way things stand right now, being the best horse isn't enough. You need to be an "iron horse" to win the TC. If there was more time between races, just being the best horse would sometimes be enough. Some may argue that would be a bad thing because it would lessen the accomplishment of winning the TC. There is some truth to that but you have to weigh the good and the bad. If it was up to me, I would add one more week between races. That would still be extremely challenging. Running those 3 races over 7 weeks (instead of 5 weeks) would be very tough, but reasonable. The current spacing is not reasonable IMO.

you've always had to be an 'iron horse' to win. people wanting changes are completely ignoring the history of the tc.
were there changes made between citation and secretariat?

if it's not rare, and not special-why bother trying for it.

the guy isn't trying to make winning the tc doable, he thinks his track is getting less attention. he may be right, but i don't think it's due to the schedule. md racing has been taking hits for some time, it's not because of the dates. it's because of purses and offerings.

First of all, it's not as if they've been doing it this way for 100 years. They've changed the schedule several times over the years.

I think it would still be special and relatively rare to have a TC winner if they added an extra week between races. Maybe they would get a TC winner every 5-10 years. I think that would still be a pretty big deal.

yes, i know it's changed several times. i know that it would have been inpossible at one point to do, because of when they were run.
but no changes have occurred in a very, very long time.
i simply disagree that it needs changing. we have horses who run a week back (like bayern may well have done) from the trial to the derby, or two weeks from the lexington to the derby.
pimlico thinks they are getting short shrift because of the schedule. i think it's because of it being pimlico. md racing has been in decline for some time, changing the preakness date won't change the decision to run there for most. you have to entice the horsemen. no better way than to give them what they want.

There is no reason to believe that added time would create more Triple Crown winners. As a matter of fact a TC winner wont have any lasting impact on racing anyway.

Chuckas is looking out for Pimlico which is what he is supposed to do but changing the dates wont help the TC and might very well do the opposite.

Now the best argument for changing the TC dates would be if the tracks got together and created a TC of sorts for the other divisions/undercard races as well which with a little creativity and common sense could be continued throughout the rest of the summer and fall leading up to the Breeders Cup.

Just changing the TC and randomly hoping it works is a far more likely scenario though

Don't understand why they don't have a Triple Crown for Fillies running the Friday before the Triple Crown Race. I'm sure that NBCSN can market that...

You don't think the current spacing of those races is one of the things that makes it so difficult to win the TC?

I don't think spacing had anything to do with the last ten horses vying for the TC after winning the first two races, failing to complete the sweep.

Just off the top of my head...

Alysheba got beat by a mile due to having a dumb ride, plus he got beat by a horse that also ran in all three races.

Sunday Silence got trounced by a Belmont track freak, whom also ran in all three races.

Silver Charm got beat by a better horse (at least in my eyes, he had more ability) that was unlucky to lose to Silver Charm in the Preakness.

Real Quiet made that crazy early move, and lost to a horse that also ran in all three races.

Charismatic, possibly, but he was trained by Lukas.

Funny Cide was fortunate to win the Derby, and got beat in the Belmont by a horse of considerably better quality.

Smarty Jones got Bailey'd in the Belmont.

War Emblem had that bad start in the Belmont, but who knows.

Big Brown, he looked like a horse in bad trouble towards the end of the Preakness. Would he have benefited from another week or two, maybe!

I'll Have Another???

no.

was it the current spacing that cost everyone for 25 years between cy and secretariat?

was it spacing that cost real quiet, smarty, spectacular bid, sunday silence for starters?

you could put them three months apart, doesn't mean more horses would win it.
chuckas needs to focus on his tracks product, instead of an 'easy' fix for what ails him.
he doesn't want a tc winner, he wants more receipts this weekend.

:tro:

NY used to have their own TC for fillies the Acorn, Mother Goose and Coaching Club all which were far bigger races than the Black Eyed Susan.

The spacing makes the Preakness easier to win for the Derby winner and the 1 1/2 distance is an x factor regardless of time between races. Put it this way the leading trainer in the country who has by far the best young stock year after year doesnt even bother trying to win the preakness now.

You are being a little harsh on Tommy boy. From HIS vantage point, yeah the 2 week turn around hurts HIS product, especially the undercard races. However the rest of us are looking at the timing from a different vantage point and our jobs arent being impacted

Exactly, the derby winner is in peak form and extra time between the derby and preakness would open the door for late developers to knock them off.

I never claimed that the spacing was the only thing that makes it so tough to win the TC. I do believe it is one of the toughest things but not the only thing. Most trainers would agree with that. If you asked guys like Pletcher and Baffert, I guarantee you that they would tell you that the spacing is one of the most challenging things and that it makes it all that much tougher to win all three. It's not rocket science to know that it's asking a lot of a 3 year old (or even an older horse) to run 3 times in 5 weeks, including a 1 1/2 mile race.

Most would? Show me.

If most wanted it changed,it would. Look at poly going away for example. And of course its tough, else anyone could do it.

I don't think I am being harsh. If you want business you offer a good product. And if it weren't for the tc tradition he wouldn't draw anyone.

Does anyone know when the last change was made in either the spacing or the length of the races? I tried to track it down, but for once Google failed me.

Good thread, btw. I particularly liked Indian Charlie's rundown of the Belmont 'fails'. And I totally agree with Cannon's "As a matter of fact a TC winner wont have any lasting impact on racing anyway."

My own opinion on whether the spacing should be changed is obvious from my avatar.

--Dunbar