Once again, the second leg of the Triple Crown will be going off without a Kentucky Derby winner.
According to a news release issued on Tuesday, Sovereignty will not race in this year’s Preakness Stakes on Saturday, May 17. It is the first time a Derby winner has not competed in the Preakness since Rich Strike skipped the race in 2022, but continues a troubling trend for the Triple Crown’s second leg.
In recent years, Derby horses have frequently opted-out of racing in the Preakness due to the quick two-week turnaround not being sufficient for the horse’s full recovery. As a result, the Preakness has sported weaker than normal fields, sometimes not having a single Derby horse compete other than the winner.
Only Journalism and American Promise are considering running the Preakness out of the 19 horses that competed in the Kentucky Derby on Saturday.
The trend calls into question whether the Triple Crown should rethink its scheduling to ensure the best horses can compete at each event. Currently, there is a two-week gap between the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes, and a three-week gap between the Preakness and Belmont Stakes. Shifting both the Preakness and Belmont back one week would conceivably give horses enough time to recover and run in all three races, but at the cost of moving these races off their traditional dates.
While tradition is tough to do away with, especially in a sport like horse racing, maintaining it at the cost of a quality product is no way forward. If horses continue to opt out of the Preakness en masse, it’s time to consider changing when it is run.
