Their names are familiar to even the most casual of fan: Secretariat, Citation, American Pharoah, Justify. That the list has only 13 names in a century speaks to the challenge it presents: three races at three different distances at three different racetracks over a scant five weeks. The list of American stakes races and their winners reads like a veritable history book on its own, but the three races that make up the Triple Crown – the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes and the Belmont Stakes – stand apart from them all. To win one puts the horse and the team behind them in the history books; to win them all makes them immortal.
Integral to the identity of horseracing in the American sporting psyche, the Triple Crown’s long history and tremendous challenge have transformed these stakes races into life-changing Classics and prompted each track to continue investing millions into their Classic’s success.
The ubiquity of Crowns
Prior to 1919, any mention of the words ‘Triple Crown’ referred not to the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes but to their English progenitors, the 2,000 Guineas, Derby and St Leger. Before Sir Barton’s pioneering turns in those three American stakes, 13 horses had won their English counterparts, making that term synonymous with excellence in Britain rather than the US.
In just over a decade, Gallant Fox’s and then his son Omaha’s wins made the term ‘Triple Crown’ a necessity for American turf writers and the six horses that followed over the next two decades sealed its place in our sporting lexicon.
In the intervening decades, only two other horses, Bahram (1935) and Nijinsky (1970), have gone on to win its English cousin. For European three-year-olds, winning those three Classics, set over a span of 18 weeks, from late April/early May to September, has given way to other opportunities. For American three-year-olds, the Triple Crown, set over five weeks in May and June, remains the gold standard for judging a horse’s career.
To win one Classic, especially the most visible of the three, the Kentucky Derby, draws many an owner, breeder, trainer, and jockey into the sport. As Hall of Fame writer Steve Haskin observed: “Winning the Kentucky Derby is more than achieving one’s dream; it often becomes one’s legacy.”
Sharilyn Gasaway, a partner in 2024 Kentucky Derby winner Mystik Dan, shared: “D. Wayne Lukas said, ‘I’ve won the Breeders’ Cup, I’ve won this, I’ve won that.’ And he starts railing off all these tremendously prestigious races that he’s won. And he said: ‘But the only one that anyone cares about is if I’ve won the Kentucky Derby.’”
Ask anyone who plays a role in American racing, no matter how peripheral the job, and they will share that the questions they are most frequently asked often have to do with the three Triple Crown Classics. These two-minute spectacles are also big business, driving revenue in multiple facets of the sport.
The business of Crowns
Once a Triple Crown hopeful is in the barn, the entry for the three races is accessible to owners at all income levels. To nominate a three-year-old requires filling out one form and then paying $600 by the first deadline toward the end of January or $6,000 through the first week of April. Once in the gate for one or more of the Classics, participants pay entry and starter fees, which are $25,000 for the Derby and $15,000 for the Preakness and the Belmont, but the minimal fees and centralised entry makes nominating a horse for the Triple Crown a simple process, one that encourages stables of all stripes to toss their names into the hat.
For the racetracks that play host to these Classics, each of these races is a massive income driver, regularly attracting sizable crowds. The Kentucky Derby averages in the 150,000-person range, while the Preakness attracted around 125,000 each year prior to the Covid pandemic and then just under 50,000 since, with current owner 1/ST Racing emphasising smaller crowds to improve fan experience.
The Belmont Stakes, usually contested at its namesake Belmont Park, averages between 50,000 and 60,000 when a Triple Crown is not on the line; for both American Pharoah’s and Justify’s Crown-sealing days, the New York Racing Association (NYRA) capped attendance at 90,000. As Belmont Park undergoes a much-needed update, the race has been shifted to Saratoga; there, NYRA capped attendance for the 2024 edition at 50,000 and sold out the 14-race card.
While they are on hand for these Classics, fans are not just sipping each race’s signature drink but are also frequenting the betting windows. The 150th Kentucky Derby card generated $320,500,000 in handle while NYRA took in $125,748,941 on Belmont Stakes day; the Preakness stands as the only outlier, with $57.9 million for the day’s card. While Belmont’s 2024 handle was smaller than either American Pharoah’s or Justify’s, which were $135,790,321 and $137,954,895 respectively, that total was still a record for a non-Triple Crown year, even more notable as the race itself was run at an alternate venue.
Another indicator of the Triple Crown’s impact can be measured in its television viewership. The three races each still bring in more viewers than the Breeders’ Cup World Championships: the Saturday audience share for the 41st edition at Del Mar was 834,000 viewers for the main broadcast on NBC, while the Kentucky Derby attracted 16.7 million viewers for the 150th edition, also on NBC.
The Preakness Stakes on NBC scored about 5.5m viewers, and the Belmont attracted 3.66m viewers on Fox. Compare those numbers to other high-profile American sporting events like the Indianapolis 500 (5.344m), the NBA finals (11.31m average per game), and the World Series (15.8m average per game). The Triple Crown, especially the Derby, still holds a significant place in the minds of sports fans in the United States.
An enduring Crown
For trainer Jena Antonucci, the first woman to train the winner of a Triple Crown race, her exposure to the Triple Crown came early: “My grandparents got into racing when I was ten or 12, somewhere in there. And so I started following closely. I remember it would be on [television], and the Derby would be on in the barn on the big days.” Talk to any racing fan and they will name a family connection that would watch the races on television, casually exposing the next generation to the Triple Crown. As Sol Kumin, partner in Triple Crown champion Justify observed: “In America, the Triple Crown is the one time where racing really goes from just racing fans to mainstream.”
Kumin, the man behind Madaket Stables, shared: “Those three days, even before I was a horse- racing fan – and I have only been involved in racing for maybe 11 years or so – all I knew was the Triple Crown. And that was in your mind, the pinnacle.
“I just think they’re ingrained in people’s minds as the big days. And you grow up watching them. You watch it with your parents, you watch it with your grandparents.”
One aspect of the Triple Crown that captivates the sporting imagination is the difficulty of winning these three races in five weeks. In the 106 years since Sir Barton pioneered the feat, 23 horses won the first two and then fell short in (or were injured and missed) the Belmont Stakes, while 29 missed out in one of the three. “The Kentucky Derby and the Triple Crown, you have one chance to try to do it and try to make it happen. That’s the appeal and the draw: it’s meant to be hard. It’s meant to be difficult,” Churchill Downs’ Gary Palmisano observed. “It’s not meant to be Derby, Travers, Breeders’ Cup; it’s meant to be something that, when you do it, you know you’ve done something historic and truly special. It’s a huge reason why people breed horses and buy horses, to try to win these American Classics.”
“It’s our holy grail,” Mike Smith, Hall of Fame jockey who won his Triple Crown with Justify, reflected. “When you get into the game, I think it’s everyone’s dream to win a Derby. And then to win the three, well, that’s just something. That’s just another level.”
From experience, with multiple Triple Crown wins aside from winning the whole thing in 2018, Smith knows that to succeed requires “a well above average horse, and they [have] got to be able to still pull one off while maybe not running their best race in one of them. It’s almost impossible to run a hundred percent in all three. That’s why I think that’s why it’s so hard to pull off. To win one is amazing.”
Whether a horse wins one or all three, life after crossing the finish line and hoisting the trophy is forever changed. “Every win, especially every stakes win, is special,” Antonucci explained. “But it is different because it’s the Triple Crown, and I think that’s part of the beauty of it and how special it is to our industry.” For this lifelong horsewoman and veteran trainer, Arcangelo’s 2023 Belmont Stakes victory has brought more visibility and more opportunities to talk about racing with audiences outside of the sport. That broad familiarity with the Triple Crown means that people understand the gravitas of her accomplishment more quickly.
For Kumin, whose Madaket Stable also has won Triple Crown races with Exaggerator, Authentic and National Treasure, being in the winner’s circle for a Triple Crown race is not new, but winning all three with Justify “will never happen again. That’s one of those things. Anytime you do something that you think that you are not going to be able to do again, it’s special.”
To capitalise on the depth of fan interest in the Triple Crown, the three racetracks that host these historic races continue to invest in the infrastructure that underpins each. In February, Churchill Downs announced a multi-year, $900m project that expands seating options for the track’s two biggest days, the Kentucky Oaks and Derby, on the first Friday and Saturday each May. This is on top of nearly two weeks’ worth of celebrations in the city of Louisville that count down to the big event.
“We feel like the Kentucky Derby is not only just the crown jewel of the thoroughbred industry, but it is also a piece of Americana, a piece of American history. It’s a bucket list event that people all around the world seek out,” Palmisano shared. “Obviously, our investment in our facility and what Maryland and Belmont are doing within their facilities is going to allow us to show horseracing off in a in a different way to a different audience that will appeal to future generations. I would venture to guess the future of the Triple Crown never looked brighter.”
Along the same lines, as the state of Maryland takes over Pimlico and the Preakness Stakes from 1/ST Racing, they seek to build toward their Triple Crown Classic with the same sort of community engagement seen in Louisville. “When you have a state that jumps in like this and supports building a brand-new facility like this, it really shows how much passion and looking towards the future of not only the Preakness itself, but also the racing season and racing here in Maryland,” Bill Knauf, the President and General Manager of the revamped Maryland Jockey Club, said of the ongoing changes in the state’s approach to the sport.
NYRA is similarly investing in the future of its signature race through its $550m reconstruction of 120-year-old Belmont Park. During this three-year rebuilding phase, NYRA moved the Belmont Stakes to its upstate historic showplace, Saratoga. The 2024 edition of the Belmont at Saratoga brought in an additional $50m to Saratoga Springs, demonstrating the strength of these races even in a year when no one horse can win all three. “The amount of people that want to see racing and see the Triple Crown far exceeds the ones that don’t,” Antonucci observed, sharing a common thread of conversations about this historic phenomenon, that American fans of all stripes, from casual to ardent, want to be a part of these big days.
“Over the years, despite the rise in popularity of other sports and sporting events, the Triple Crown, mainly the second two legs, the Preakness and Belmont Stakes, still are able to fill the seats that are pretty much empty the rest of the year with enthusiastic fans who still consider all three races a magical event that remains a major part of American culture – a party not to be missed,” Haskin stated. “The Triple Crown is a feat so rare and so difficult it is like reaching the summit of a seemingly unconquerable mountain.”
As the pinnacle of this sport, the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes and the Belmont Stakes are essential to the American racing identity. These races are not only shorthand for greatness but also have become synonymous with racing in our sporting psyche. In essence, these Classics encompass the heart of the sport for fans both in the United States and around the world. Winning one can be life-changing for horse and human; winning all three means immortality, a once-in-a-lifetime experience that keeps fans coming back year after year to witness history cross the finish line one more time.
