Horses and courses

I will give the owner of California Chrome credit for speaking his mind:

I'm not so sure he's right about things, though. And it's not fair to call the owners of the horses "cowards." There's an argument to be made that Tonalist, the horse that ended up winning the Belmont, might have been a formidable contender had he run in the earlier races. He couldn't, though:

Obviously Coburn is referring to Tonalist, who ran in the Belmont but not the Derby and Preakness. There were extenuating circumstances, however. First off, Tonalist was on the Derby trail before a lung infection kept him from the Grade I Wood Memorial, a Derby tune-up. Tonalist then ran and won the Grade II Peter Pan Stakes May 10, which made an attempt at the Preakness just a week later impossible.

It's now been 36 years since Affirmed won the Triple Crown, way back in 1978. It was a scintillating duel:

Since then, we've had some close calls -- Smarty Jones getting edged at the wire in 2004:

And in the true heartbreaker, Real Quiet losing by a nose, if that, in 1998:

By contrast, California Chrome wasn't that close, finishing in a tie for 4th. So what do we make of Steve Coburn's rant? Does he have a point?

Technically, he doesn't. One of the reasons winning the Triple Crown is such an amazing accomplishment is that it's just tremendously difficult to do. Also, if Coburn's suggestion were true, you'd likely end up with 30 horses running in the Derby, because if that were the only way to compete every eligible horse would enter that race. As it is, you often have 20 horses and strange things happen as a result. You had a 50-1 longshot named Giacomo win the Derby in 2005. The horse that finished third in that race, Afleet Alex, was a far superior horse and proved it by blowing away the rest of the field in the Preakness and the Belmont. If you think I'm overstating that, watch how Afleet Alex dominates down the stretch:

Now, having said all that, I will grant Coburn this much -- he's probably right that we won't see another Triple Crown winner for a long time, because it's asking a lot to win all three races. It takes a great horse and great luck. The other potentially great horse in the modern era, Barbaro, got injured in the Preakness and never had a chance to prove the greatness many people believed he had. You could change the rules, or push the Belmont back a week to give the racers more time to rest, but it's not necessarily in the best interest of the sport.