An adage from the world of sports goes “records are made to be broken.” That is true for most records but not all. Consider five from the annals of the Triple Crown, which most likely will never be equaled, much less surpassed.
1. When the first Triple Crown winner, Sir Barton in 1919, won the Triple Crown the Preakness was run at 1 1/8 miles and the Belmont at 1 3/8 miles. All of the other Triple Crown winners competed at today’s distances for the Preakness and Belmont. One can say with virtual certainty that Sir Barton’s times for the Preakness and Belmont will stand the test of time because the races will never revert to the shorter 1919 distances.
2. Gallant Fox, winner of the Triple Crown in 1930, sired Omaha, the winner of the 1935 Triple Crown. The record of a Triple Crown winner siring a Triple Crown winner is extraordinarily difficult to match.
3. The legendary Calumet Farm dominated the Triple Crown from the early 1940s through the late 1960s. Calumet owned eight Kentucky Derby winners (and bred a ninth that raced for another owner), eight Preakness winners, and two Belmont winners. Among these 18 winners were two colts (Whirlaway in 1941 and Citation in 1948) that were also Triple Crown champions.
4. Two stables each bred and owned two Triple Crown winners. Belair Stud had Gallant Fox and Omaha and Calumet Farm had Whirlaway and Citation. Both of the Belair colts were trained by “Sunny Jim” Fitzsimmons. Similarly, Eddie Aracro rode both of the Calumet champions and they were trained by the father-son team of Ben and Jimmy Jones.
5. Secretariat ran the fastest times ever in both the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont. (His official time for the Preakness was not a record, but the racetrack timer may have malfunctioned. Two clockers from The Daily Racing Form said that Secretariat broke the stakes record.) In order for a horse to match Secretariat’s record, he or she would have to equal the record times in two of the three Triple Crown races.
Copyright © 2015 Horse Racing Business
Recent Comments