Steve Moody of Kentucky Handicappers Sheet sent along the following e-mail:
John,
My personal opinion is the Triple Crown should not be changed. It's supposed to be tough to win. During the 25-year drought between Citation and Secretariat, I'm sure there were people then calling for changes. Then after 3 Triple Crown winners during a six-year span in the '70's, there were people saying it was too easy.
It is interesting to note, however, that the Triple Crown has not always been run over the current five-week time span it is now. In fact, only the last three winners, Secretariat, Seattle Slew, and Affirmed won the 3 races on the two-week, then three-week intervals we have now.
Derby Preakness Belmont Span
1919 5/10 (Wed.) 5/14 (Wed.) 6/11 32 days
1930 5/17 (Fri.) 5/9 6/07 29 days
1935 5/04 5/11 6/08 35 days
1937 5/08 5/15 6/05 28 days
1941 5/03 5/10 6/07 35 days
1943 5/01 5/08 6/05 35 days
1946 5/04 5/11 6/01 28 days
1948 5/01 5/15 6/12 42 days
1973 5/05 5/19 6/09 35 days
1977 5/07 5/21 6/11 35 days
1978 5/06 5/20 6/10 35 days
While the 5-week time span has been the most common, the two-week interval between the Derby and Preakness didn't come about until 1948 and that year there was still a 4-week gap between the Preakness and the Belmont, though Citation ran in between, winning the Jersey Derby.
While I could live with changing the Derby-Preakness interval to 3 weeks, I am totally against changing the distances of the races. That would completely diminish the series.
This afternoon, Steve e-mailed me again to say, "I was talking with (Churchill Downs official) John Asher yesterday about this trying to determine why the series deviated from 5 weeks in 1937, 1946, and 1948. The Derby ran a week later than normal in 1937 because of the flood, but we didn't know any particular reason why the changes were made in the other two years.
The only thing I can surmise is that principals tinkered with the timing after being forced to change the dates in 1945 because of the war. In 1945, the 3 races were run on successive Saturdays in June starting with the Derby on June 9th. In 1946, the Derby and Preakness were back to normal (1 week interval), but the Belmont was moved to just 3 weeks later. Because the way the calendar fell, it meant the Belmont was run in May in 1947, the first time that happened since 1910."
