Horse racing's Triple Crown in danger after new series excludes Preakness
Yahoo Sports Daily hosts Caroline Fenton and Jay Busbee are joined by senior writer Dan Wolken to discuss Churchill Downs and NYRA launching a new horse racing series that excludes the Preakness and explain what it means for the second race of the Triple Crown. Watch the full episode of Yahoo Sports Daily on YouTube or YahooSports.TV .
Video Transcript
Churchill Downs and New York Racing Association have created this new six-race series, a $5 million bonus, and it cut out the Preakness.
It, it sliced Maryland completely out of the equation, which in turn potentially weakens or even destroys the Triple Crown.
What is your sense of, of, of what this means for the Triple Crown, one of the most famous, awards in sports?
Well, I think that really the most interesting part of this story, you have to go back to April when Churchill Downs purchased the intellectual property rights for the Preakness for $85 million, which was a separate transaction from the racetrack itself, Pimlico Race Course, which got taken over by the state of Maryland for redevelopment.
They are going to and are in the process of building a brand-new $400 million, physical plant that they want to be not just the home of the Preakness, but the everyday home of horse racing in the state of Maryland.
And so I think Churchill's idea and their plan was they were going to sort of manage a lot of the monetization of the Preakness, run it at Pimlico, and sort of be partners with the state of Maryland, in which case, you know, the Triple Crown, they'd, they'd kind of own two-thirds of the Triple Crown.
Maryland exercised their right of first refusal, so they did not allow Churchill to execute this transaction.
They, they kept the intellectual property rights for themselves.
Churchill Downs is a ruthless business organization, and they responded to this by teaming up with the New York Racing Association and completely cutting the state of Maryland out of the deal.
And they've created this series, this six-race series, where all the incentives are going to be toward horses, owners, trainers running in the Derby, skipping the Preakness, and then running in the Belmont.
Now, that doesn't preclude them from running in the Preakness.
Some might still continue to do that.
Some might chase the Triple Crown.
It's unknown.
But we are seeing what's happened from a trend, trend standpoint, the last two Kentucky Derby winners have skipped the Preakness.
It's happened three times in the last, I think, five years.
So that'll probably continue more often than not.
It doesn't mean the Triple Crown is dead as, technically, but it might be dead in spirit in, in the sense of this is just not something people are going to pursue anymore, and the Preakness is going to continue as sort of a, you know, a local Maryland event rather than, a big part of horse racing history.
I, I hope it doesn't come to that, but that's what it seems like is happening.
