As Sovereignty skips Preakness, does racing see Triple Crown must change?

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Every Kentucky Derby-winning trainer has the same day-after script when it comes to bringing their horse to the Preakness. And the line is usually some non-committal variation of “they’ll tell us” if they’re physically ready to run back just two weeks later in the second jewel of the Triple Crown. 

Well, Bill Mott wasn’t kidding Sunday, the morning after Sovereignty’s victory. You could almost see the thought bubble forming around his words, telling everyone not to be too surprised if he and the management team at Godolphin, which owns the horse, decided to take a pass on Baltimore. 

“It’s good to have that option,” Mott told reporters. “I don’t think we’re dead set on it. I don’t think that’s the only thing we’re thinking about.”

And guess what? A little more than 48 hours later, a news release from Pimlico made it official: Sovereignty isn’t coming to Baltimore.

Uh-oh. Is anyone in horse racing going to listen when the best trainers in the world — and the people responsible for the health and well-being of the animal — tell you over and over again that the Triple Crown is no longer viable in its current format? 

Sorry, traditionalists. But it’s time for the Triple Crown to change. 

It doesn’t have to be anything radical. But the modern racehorse is not bred or built to run three long races in five weeks, and there isn’t a single high-level trainer in the country that would put their horse through that gauntlet unless there was a historic achievement on the line. 

Give credit to Mott, one of the best and most careful horsemen in the world, for putting his principles – and the long-term health of Sovereignty – ahead of his own ambitions and the pressure he undeniably felt to bring the show to Maryland.

Those who have resisted adding some time between the races have long argued that it cheapens the achievement if you remove part of the challenge. But what’s actually been happening over the last several years is that so few horses run in all three races it’s already being cheapened. 

And the ones that do, in general, don’t come out better for it on the other side. 

Last year, Derby winner Mystik Dan ran in all three legs and then disappeared until December. He’s 0-for-3 since then. Mage, the 2023 winner, ran in the Preakness and was never the same, retiring after two more races and several physical issues.

“I think over the years, people realize that spacing these horses out a little bit gives you the opportunity to make them last a little longer,” Mott said. “I think we’re looking at a career, you know, and you want the career to last more than five weeks.”

There could not be a more damning indictment of how the Triple Crown is now perceived. 

Sure, you can argue that breeders – especially those who care more about the price their horse will fetch in the sales ring than what happens on the racetrack – should stop what they’ve been doing for the last couple of decades and breed more soundness and stamina into their horses. But that’s just not realistic, and may not even reverse the increasing fragility of the common racehorse.

This isn’t the 1940s anymore, when it was common for Thoroughbreds to run every couple of weeks and sometimes actually run races in-between the three-week gap separating the Preakness and Belmont. This isn’t the 1980s, when one of the premier Derby preps, the Blue Grass Stakes, was actually held nine days before the run for the roses. It’s not even 2015, when American Pharoah broke the 37-year drought and proved to the racing world that it could still be done. 

And even as modern Thoroughbreds become more injury-prone and less sturdy due to inbreeding and the commercial appeal of speed pedigrees over stamina, it can still be done. 

But at what cost? 

“It’s a long season and he’s had three hard races since February and that takes a lot out of those horses,” Michael Banahan, the director of American bloodstock for Godolphin, told reporters. “It’s a quick turnaround and that’s what makes the Triple Crown so special. He’ll tell us yea or nay, and we’ll do what he tells us to do. There’s lots of great opportunities and really good races to try to compete in and see if we can pad his résumé even more.”

That last part seems significant. 

Because for the connections of a horse like Sovereignty, the Kentucky Derby was the goal, full stop. Everything they did with him in the winter and spring was designed to have him at his peak level of fitness on Saturday to run an incredibly grueling race. 

Often, the horses are so fit after the Derby that they can bounce right back two weeks later and deliver another monster performance. 

But it does grind them up, and the Preakness — for all its tradition and fanfare — is really just another big race. Yeah, running for a $2 million purse is nice. But if you just looked at the fields that the Preakness has been drawing for several years now and judged the race only on its merits, is it really even a Grade 1 quality race anymore? You can argue it’s not even as prestigious these days as winning the Travers and certainly not as lucrative as the $7 million Breeders’ Cup Classic at the end of the season.

So if running all three legs of the Triple Crown results in a tired horse that needs an extended break – at the cost of a chance to win those other big races – is it really worth trying? Sovereignty will be pointed to the Belmont, with a standard five-week break, and most likely be fresh to come back in the summer and fall with a chance to mount a Horse of the Year campaign. If that’s the calculation Mott and Godolphin are making, it’s very easy to understand why they’re taking this path.

“I think the Triple Crown is a huge challenge for any horse,” Mott said. ‘The great thing about it is not many horses are able to do it, and certainly I believe that he’s a big, strong horse and if you’re ever going to look at one and if that’s your goal and the goal of the owner and still in the best interest of the horse, it’s great. Everybody knows that American Pharoah won it and Justify won it (in 2018), but we’re going to look long-term.”

If horse racing had its act together, this wouldn’t even be a debate. There would be three weeks or a month between the Derby and Preakness, then another month to get ready for the Belmont. It would still be extremely hard to win — maybe even harder because the Preakness and Belmont would have better fields. 

And this kind of tweak at the expense of tradition wouldn’t be the end of the world. Though the spacing of the Triple Crown races has been consistent for decades, it has moved around a bit since the early days. There’s nothing sacrosanct about squeezing it into five weeks, and the powers that be should have started a real conversation about changing things when they noticed in the 2010s how few horses anymore were running in all three races. 

After that thrilling Derby on Saturday, what could possibly be better for horse racing than having a Preakness where you get Sovereignty, Journalism and Baeza back for a rematch on a different track with different conditions? Instead, Pimlico will be lucky if one of the three shows up. And if that’s the case, what’s even the point of the Preakness anymore? 

As much as most fans want to see Sovereignty try for the Triple Crown, Mott holding him out of the race might just be the moment of clarity horse racing needs to finally admit that the current format is no longer in the best interests of the sport. 

This column has been updated with new information.

Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Dan Wolken on BlueSky.