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 Triple
Crown traditions
Not since Affirmed in 1978 has a horse
become honored as a Triple Crown champion. Nonetheless,
every year, the nation's best three-year-old thoroughbreds
will compete for the coveted Triple Crown during the
Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes, three
races esteemed in tradition like few others in all of
American sporting events.
Jockey Gary Stevens is surrounded by carnations after
winning the 1998 Belmont.
All three races have been held since
the late 1800s, almost 100 years before the Super Bowl
and several decades before the World Series and Stanley
Cup Finals. Before Horton Smith won the first Masters,
Oregon the first men's NCAA basketball tournament, Ray
Harroun prevailed at Indy and even Richard Sears at
the 1881 U.S. Open, Triple Crown hopefuls have broken
from the starting gate.
The Kentucky Derby, the longest continuously
held sporting event in the U.S., is the first and most
well known of the three races. The "Run for the
Roses" is held at Churchill Downs during the first
Saturday in May.
"I think we all sort of mark the
passage of time by the fact that here it is -- time
for another Kentucky Derby," ABC announcer Jim
McKay says of the 1 ¼ mile race. "It's time
for that song, My Old Kentucky Home, that always brings
a tear to the eye no matter where you are from.
"It's time to put on the greatest
two minutes in sports."
The Preakness Stakes, held in Pimlico,
Md. two weeks after the Derby, is known as the "Middle
Jewel of the Triple Crown." Only Saratoga (est.
1863) and Belmont (1867) are older than Pimlico. Its
trophy, the Woodlawn Vase, is valued at $1 million dollars,
the most valuable trophy in American sports.
If a horse wins both the Derby and Preakness,
serious talk begins about Triple Crown immortality.
"There is a great deal of excitement
over the question: "Can the horse win the second
jewel of the Triple Crown and then go on to the Belmont?"
McKay says.
The final jewel of the Triple Crown,
the Belmont Stakes, is held three weeks after the Preakness.
While the Derby and Preakness have 1 ¼ mile tracks,
the Belmont's distance is longer at 1 ½ miles.
The horses that run in Belmont will probably never again
race at that distance.
The oldest of the Triple Crown events,
Belmont's inaugural race was in 1867 at Jerome Park,
predating the Preakness by six years and the Derby by
eight. The race is now being held at Belmont Park in
Elmont, N.Y., the largest track in the United States.
"When a horse has a chance for
the Triple Crown, that is it," McKay says. "With
that honor on the line, the Belmont Stakes becomes the
most thrilling event in horse racing."
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