ELMONT, N.Y. — Before Secretariat ever attempted the Triple Crown, he'd run three times in five weeks twice and four times in less than six weeks once.
Before Affirmed made his run at history, he'd started on one or two weeks' rest seven times.
Compare their schedules to that of American Pharoah, who'll try to join them in the Triple Crown pantheon on Saturday, and you might as well be talking about different sports. He ran but three times as a 2-year-old, and his shortest break between races before he began the Triple Crown series was 24 days.
His is a fairly typical resume for an elite 3-year-old in this era.
Whether today's horses are more fragile than their predecessors or trainers and owners simply handle them more cautiously, they don't run as much as they once did. And that reality is cast into sharp relief during Triple Crown season, when modern 3-year-olds are asked to perform unfamiliar feats of stamina.
"They don't have the 2-year-old foundation, and they don't run as many times," said Hall of Fame jockey and NBC analyst Jerry Bailey. "There's going to be different arguments as to why, but the fact is they don't have the foundation. Look at pitchers. They used to throw complete games a lot. Now, you're happy if you get six innings out of them. I don't know that there's definitive answer why in any sport."
Everyone in racing has a theory on why the Triple Crown has become so difficult: Horses are bred to sprint rather than cover the 1 ½-mile distance at Belmont. They run less frequently as 2-year-olds and thus have less opportunity to build strength for the Triple Crown series. They face fresher fields in the Belmont because so few trainers are willing to run in both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness.
For all those reasons, rival trainers and analysts agree American Pharoah faces an enormous challenge this week.
"It's not any individual part of it, it's the accumulation of all of it," said trainer Todd Pletcher, who will try to beat the 3-5 favorite with Materiality and Madefromlucky.
"It's a combination of three races in five weeks or in his case, four races in eight weeks, and then the distance is a little different and demanding and tough," said trainer Kiaran McLaughlin, who will saddle Frosted in the Belmont. "Then on top of that, we're fresh, sitting here training for this race since May 4."
Bailey said McLaughlin's last point is the key one: American Pharoah will be completing a far tougher stretch of racing than any of his Belmont competitors.
"It's more than anybody else," he said. "It's more races and more miles than anybody else, so the playing field is not exactly level."
After Frosted finished a solid fourth in the Derby, McLaughlin never considered coming back in two weeks for the Preakness. His caution illustrates the common mentality among modern horsemen.
McLaughlin said top horses unquestionably ran more often in the 1980s when he was learning as an apprentice to Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas. He's not sure why trainers have changed their habits so drastically.
"Nowadays we like time," he said. "We feel like they're not machines and we can't run every two or three weeks. But maybe it's a lame excuse. I don't know. Because we do run back sometimes in two or three weeks and successfully."
American Pharoah's trainer, Bob Baffert, is no different. He didn't consider bringing Dortmund back for the Belmont after the horse finished third in the Derby and fourth in the Preakness. He saw the lanky horse dropping weight and failing to close races with vigor. So he figured Dortmund needed a rest.
Simon Callaghan, who trained Derby runner-up Firing Line, made a similar decision after his horse stumbled in the mud at Pimlico Race Course and finished seventh.
Such caution is essentially the default stance in this era.
Billy Turner has watched the changes accelerate since he trained Seattle Slew to the 1977 Triple Crown. He said it's difficult to compare American Pharoah's experience to those of the great champions of the 1970s.
"They've run fewer times as 2-year-olds. They have fewer starts going into the Triple Crown races," Turner said of today's 3-year-olds. "It's not because the trainers train them that way. It's they just feel their horses can't take it anymore. … More horses are being bred for market than they are for racing, and when you're breeding for market … you're taking the money and letting the next guy worry about whether the horse makes it or not."
Many old-school horsemen also blame the proliferation of medications such as Lasix, a diuretic used by virtually every top American trainer to control bleeding. Charles Fipke, the owner of Preakness runner-up Tale of Verve, recently cited Lasix as a cause for decreased durability. Turner agreed.
"Lasix takes a lot out of them," he said. "They don't realize, but it does. It has side effects that aren't much talked about. But if you took it out, it won't hurt the game at all. It'll help it."
Asked what will be toughest on American Pharoah, Baffert noted both the unfamiliar length at the Belmont and his horse's ambitious travel schedule over the last several months. But if his horse is truly great, he said, none of that will matter.
American Pharoah has shown all the right signs, maintaining his appetite and delivering an eye-popping final workout in Kentucky. Maybe he's the one to defy all the trends.
"We're just going to get him ready," Baffert said, "and if he's great, he'll get it done."
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