Will we ever see another Triple Crown Winner?

[Holland Hacker]

I have been wondering about this for a while now and last night I finally had a chance to summarize some data. Based on some quick information taken from Champions it appears that a Triple Crown winner has faced approximatley 10 horses less than those that have won only two legs of the Triple Crown. For the winners of 2 legs I started with 1981. Please let me know if I left anyone out.

Year Horse Derby Preakness Belmont TOTAL
TRIPLE CROWN WINNERS:
1919 Sir Barton 12 12 3 27
1930 Gallant Fox 15 11 4 30
1935 Omaha 18 8 5 31
1937 War Admiral 20 8 7 35
1941 Whirlaway 11 8 4 23
1943 Count Fleet 10 4 3 17
1946 Assault 17 10 7 34
1948 Citation 6 4 5 15
1973 Secretariat 13 6 5 24
1977 Seattle Slew 15 9 8 32
1978 Affirmed 11 7 5 23
Average 26.45454545

WINNERS OF 2 out of 3:
1981 Pleasant Colony 21 13 11 45
1984 Swale 20 10 11 41
1987 Alysheba 17 9 9 35
1988 Risen Star 17 9 6 32
1989 Sunday Silence 15 8 10 33
1995 Thunder Gulch 19 11 11 41
1997 Silver Charm 13 10 7 30
1998 Real Quiet 15 10 11 36
1999 Chrismatic 19 13 12 44
2001 Point Given 17 11 9 37
2002 War Emblem 18 13 11 42
2003 Funny Cide 16 10 6 32
2004 Smarty Jones 18 10 9 37
2005 Afleet Alex 20 14 9 43
Average 37.71429

Any thoughts

[MLC]

Your 2 out of 3 list doesn't include many other horses: Nashua, Tim Tam, Carry Back, Kauai King, Native Dancer, Northern Dancer, Majestic Prince, Little Current, others.

[MLC]

Sorry, my bad.

[cakes44]

Citation faced the least # of horses. He stunk.

[Cajungator26]

I don't think that horses like Alex should count...

IMO, only the horses that won the Derby and the Preakness should be listed. In reality, those were the only ones that had a shot at the Triple Crown to begin with.

Originally Posted by Cajungator26

I don't think that horses like Alex should count...

IMO, only the horses that won the Derby and the Preakness should be listed. In reality, those were the only ones that had a shot at the Triple Crown to begin with.

I think that's a good pt. so at that pt. we would be down to simply comparing the Belmont fields of those who won TC vs Belmont fields of those who had 2 but failed at Bel. I guess.

[miraja2]

Originally Posted by cakes44

Citation faced the least # of horses. He stunk.

Yeah he did stink. He couldn't even win 17 races in a row. Sure he won 16 in a row, but if he had actually been good he would have won at least 17. Plus he only raced 45 times in his life but he still managed to finish off the board in one of those starts. What a mule.

As for the question, competing against more horses and larger fields does make it more difficult. But if another truly special horse comes along....it still could happen.
Look at War Admiral. He faced a number of horses that certainly compares to what the horses today run against....but he managed to do it, because he was simply a better horse than the Funny Cides and Real Quiets of the world.

[todko]

Some of that difference may be due to the Triple Crown winners scaring off horses in the later legs. The Derby also -- who knows how many trainers kept their horse home instead of running against Slew in the 1977 Derby? Trainers probably weren't exactly looking forward to running against Secretariat at Pimlico or Belmont after he demolished the Derby field in record time.

Plus, trainers of today may be more willing to run horses in races where they don't have a chance anyway. Look at some of DWL's Derby entrants over the last couple of years. All the major trainers lately have slung some real bombs at the Derby.

[theiman]

Originally Posted by Holland Hacker

I have been wondering about this for a while Any thoughts

NO