This year's Triple Crown schedule has been unlike any other thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, and many racing fans are still shaking their heads at the oddity of a Kentucky Derby taking place on the first Saturday in September. Speaking on Off to the Races on The Racing Biz Radio Network earlier this month however, longtime racing analyst, horseplayer, and columnist Andrew Beyer said he thinks some of this year's changes should be permanent.
“I think the 3-year-old racing this year has been different but it's been quite satisfactory,” said Beyer. “I think starting the series later in the year gave horses a chance to mature and really be ready to run top notch races, as Tiz the Law did in the Belmont, whereas modern day racing horses don't train and race hard enough going into the Kentucky Derby to really be able to deliver maximum performance.”
Beyer, who engineered the Beyer Speed Figure, thinks the spring scheduling of the Derby has resulted in poorer performances there in recent years.
“We just haven't seen many great Derbies from the speed figure standpoint for a long time,” he said.
There have been calls to alter the schedule or distance of the Triple Crown races in recent memory, but those mostly fell silent after American Pharoah ended the three-decade Triple Crown drought in 2015, followed closely by Justify in 2018.
Beyer thinks the three races should be spread farther apart, pointing out the two-week turnaround between Derby and Preakness tends to negatively impact the Preakness field. He also questions the distances of the races, pointing out that 1 1/2-mile Belmont “is really an anachronism in modern racing,” and wondering if all three should have their distances reconsidered.
“I think the racing industry should, after this season, kind of take a look at the structure of the Triple Crown and see how we might improve it,” said Beyer.
“There's no rule that we have to do everything the way we did 50 years ago.”
Listen to the complete episode of Off to the Races below:
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