50 Fun Facts About Triple Crown

Which horse in 1919 became the first winner of the American Triple Crown?

Sir Barton had never won a race before he took the Kentucky Derby by five lengths. He won the Preakness four days later, years before anyone called the three races a Triple Crown.

Turf writer Charles Hatton is credited with popularizing "Triple Crown" after which horse's 1930 sweep?

Gallant Fox swept the races in 1930, seven years after the New York Times had first used the phrase. That August he lost the Travers Stakes to Jim Dandy, a 100-1 outsider.

Which 1935 Triple Crown winner was the son of the previous winner?

Omaha was sent to England at four and started favorite for the Ascot Gold Cup, only to lose to the filly Quashed by the narrowest of margins. He was buried at a racetrack in Omaha, Nebraska.

Which 1937 Triple Crown winner lost the 1938 "Match Race of the Century" to Seabiscuit?

War Admiral was the heavy favorite, but Seabiscuit took the early lead and won by four lengths in track-record time. Some 40 million people followed the race on the radio.

Which 1941 Triple Crown winner was nicknamed "Mr. Longtail"?

Whirlaway kept drifting wide in his races until his trainer fitted a blinker over his right eye. He then won the Kentucky Derby by eight lengths.

Which 1943 Triple Crown winner took the Belmont Stakes by a record margin that stood for 30 years?

Count Fleet won all six of his races that year. Owner John Hertz, of rental-car fame, had wanted to sell him as a youngster until jockey Johnny Longden talked him out of it.

Which 1946 Triple Crown winner is the only one bred in Texas?

Assault stepped on a sharp object as a foal, leaving his right front hoof misshapen. He limped at a walk but galloped true, and fans called the King Ranch colt the "Club-footed Comet".

Which 1948 Triple Crown winner was the first horse to win US$1,000,000 in earnings?

Citation won 19 of his 20 starts in 1948, then lost all of 1949 to injury. He passed $1 million only in 1951, at age six, in the final race of his career.

Which 1977 winner was the first to take the Triple Crown while undefeated?

Seattle Slew was bought for just $17,500 as a yearling. He reached the Kentucky Derby unbeaten in six starts and came out of the Belmont still without a defeat.

Which 1978 winner beat rival Alydar into second place in all three Triple Crown races?

Affirmed won the Kentucky Derby by a length and a half and the Preakness by a neck. Yet it was Alydar who had started the Derby as the 6-5 favorite.

Which horse ended a 37-year drought by winning the Triple Crown in 2015?

American Pharoah was upset in the Travers Stakes that summer, then ended his career by winning the Breeders' Cup Classic by six and a half lengths in track-record time.

Which horse became the 13th American Triple Crown winner in 2018?

Justify never raced as a two-year-old and made all six of his starts within 111 days. A swollen ankle ended his career a few weeks after the Belmont.

By how many lengths did Secretariat win the 1973 Belmont Stakes?

He won by 31 lengths. A winning $2 ticket paid only $2.20, and more than 5,000 of them were never cashed, kept instead as souvenirs.

What was Secretariat's famous nickname?

Big Red fit a tall, bright chestnut, and soon the whole country knew the name. Between the Preakness and the Belmont he was on the covers of Time, Newsweek and Sports Illustrated.

Who rode Secretariat to the 1973 Triple Crown?

Ron Turcotte, a lumberjack in New Brunswick as a teenager, had won the 1972 Derby and Belmont on stablemate Riva Ridge. A fall in a 1978 race left him paralyzed and ended his career.

Which rival chased Secretariat early in the 1973 Belmont, then faded to last?

Sham, second in the Derby and Preakness, ran with him through a blistering opening half-mile, then tired and finished last of five. Secretariat's time of 2:24 beat the old record by more than two seconds.

Who trained Secretariat?

Lucien Laurin came out of retirement in 1971 to fill in at Meadow Stable when his son Roger left the job for the Phipps family. The stopgap post brought him two straight Kentucky Derby winners.

Which woman ran Meadow Stable and raced Secretariat?

Penny Chenery was raising four children in Colorado when her father's illness pulled her into the family stable. In 1983 she became one of the first three women admitted to the Jockey Club.

Stable secretary Elizabeth Ham took Secretariat's name from the secretariat of which international body?

The League of Nations. Ham had once been secretary to an American diplomat who led a delegation to talks in Geneva, home of its secretariat, and she put the word forward after the Jockey Club turned down the first three names.

Which stallion sired Secretariat?

Bold Ruler's owners, the Phipps family, shared his foals with mare owners by coin toss. Ogden Phipps won the 1969 toss and chose a filly who never won a race, so the unborn Secretariat went to the loser.

Secretariat was syndicated for a record $6.08 million in early 1973 to pay what?

Estate taxes: the stable's founder died that January, and rather than sell the colt his daughter had him split into 32 shares at $190,000 each, on condition that he retire to stud at the end of the year.

Secretariat stood at stud and is buried in Kentucky, but in which state was he foaled?

Virginia: he was born in 1970 at The Meadow, a farm near Doswell. Its grounds became an event park that has hosted the State Fair of Virginia since 2009.

Which racetrack hosts the Kentucky Derby?

Churchill Downs is named for John and Henry Churchill, who provided the land to their nephew Meriwether Lewis Clark Jr., the race's founder and a grandson of explorer William Clark.

The Preakness Stakes is traditionally run at which Baltimore track?

Pimlico Race Course has not always been its home: the race spent 15 straight years in New York before returning in 1909. In 2026 it moved to Laurel Park while Pimlico was rebuilt.

Which track hosted the Belmont Stakes from 2024 to 2026 while Belmont Park was rebuilt?

Saratoga Race Course staged three runnings while a new Belmont Park went up, each shortened because its dirt track is smaller. The race was set to return home in 2027.

How long is the Kentucky Derby?

1 1/4 miles since 1896. The first 21 runnings covered a mile and a half, until that was judged too far for three-year-olds so early in the spring.

The Kentucky Derby is known by what floral nickname?

The Run for the Roses was coined in 1925 by New York sports columnist Bill Corum, who a quarter of a century later was running the track himself. The winner's garland holds more than 400 red roses.

The Belmont Stakes winner is draped in a blanket of which flower?

White carnations, said to stand for love and luck, are glued flower by flower onto a green velvet cloth to make the winner's blanket.

The Preakness winner is draped in a blanket made to look like which flower?

Black-eyed Susans, Maryland's state flower, do not bloom until weeks after the race. For decades yellow daisies had their centers painted black to pass for them; look-alike Viking poms are used now.

Which Kentucky city has hosted the Derby every year since 1875?

Louisville has staged every running since Aristides won the first before about 10,000 people. War and a pandemic only delayed it: the 1945 and 2020 races were run later in the year.

Which British prime minister's grandfather built the track that held the first Belmont Stakes?

Winston Churchill's mother, Jennie, was the daughter of Leonard Jerome, the speculator who built Jerome Park. His partner in the track, the banker August Belmont, gave the race its name.

A replica of which trophy is presented to the Preakness winner's owner?

The Woodlawn Vase, made by Tiffany in 1860, was buried during the Civil War so that it would not be melted down. Since 1953 the original has stayed in Baltimore and winners take home a copy.

The colt the Preakness honors was named for his owner's farm in which state?

New Jersey: Milton Sanford's Preakness farm there gave the colt his name. Preakness won the first big stakes at the Baltimore track in 1870, and the new race was named for him.

Which unbeaten 2006 Kentucky Derby winner shattered a leg in the Preakness two weeks later?

Barbaro had won the Derby by six and a half lengths, the widest margin in 60 years. Surgeons fought for eight months to save him, but complications from the injury led to his death in January 2007.

What is the traditional drink of the Kentucky Derby?

The mint julep has been promoted as the race's drink since 1938. Guests walked off with so many of the track's glasses that it brought in a souvenir glass they could keep, and one has been made ever since.

Which song is played as the horses parade before the Derby?

Stephen Foster first sketched My Old Kentucky Home as "Poor Uncle Tom, Good Night", after the title character of the anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin. It is believed to have been part of Derby Day since 1921.

Which 1913 winner went off at 91-1, the longest odds ever to win the Kentucky Derby?

Donerail nearly stayed in the barn: his owner-trainer thought him outclassed until jockey Roscoe Goose talked him into running. A $2 win ticket paid $184.90.

Which 80-1 longshot won the 2022 Kentucky Derby after only making the field as a late replacement?

Rich Strike had been claimed for just $30,000 the previous September. He got into the race only on its eve, when another colt was scratched.

Who became the first woman to win a Triple Crown race, taking the 1993 Belmont on Colonial Affair?

Julie Krone retired in 1999 and entered the Hall of Fame a year later. Then she came back, and in 2003 became the first woman to win a Breeders' Cup race.

Which jockey is the only one to have ridden two Triple Crown winners?

Eddie Arcaro's two sweeps came seven years apart. In between he served a long suspension for knocking a rival rider off his horse in a 1942 race.

Who became the youngest jockey to win the Triple Crown in 1978?

Steve Cauthen was 18. He then moved to England, where he was champion jockey three times and won the Epsom Derby twice, the only rider to win both that race and the Kentucky Derby.

Which jockey won the 2018 Triple Crown at age 52, the oldest ever to do so?

Mike Smith also rode the great mare Zenyatta, who won her first 19 races and lost only her last. His other Kentucky Derby win came in 2005 on Giacomo, a 50-1 shot.

Which Mexican-born jockey rode the 2015 Triple Crown winner?

Victor Espinoza paid for jockey school by driving a bus in Mexico City, a job he called harder than riding racehorses. Twice before he had reached the Belmont with a sweep at stake and lost.

Which trainer saddled both the 2015 and 2018 Triple Crown winners?

Bob Baffert, once a Quarter Horse jockey from an Arizona ranch, won his sixth Derby in 2020. A seventh, in 2021, was struck off over a failed drug test, and the track banned him for more than three years.

Which 2007 filly became the first of her sex to win the Belmont Stakes since 1905?

Rags to Riches stumbled leaving the gate, then outfought Curlin, the Preakness winner and that year's Horse of the Year, down the stretch to win by a head.

Which horse upset Smarty Jones in the 2004 Belmont before a record crowd of 120,139?

Birdstone, a 36-1 shot, caught the unbeaten favorite in the final furlong. A crowd that had come to see the first sweep in 26 years went from a roar to near silence.

Which horse won the 2014 Derby and Preakness but lost the Belmont to Tonalist?

California Chrome was the first foal of a mare bought for $8,000. An onlooker said only a "dumb ass" would buy her, so his owners named their stable DAP Racing, for Dumb Ass Partners.

Which 1998 Derby and Preakness winner lost the Belmont by a nose, the narrowest of all Triple Crown misses?

Real Quiet opened a big lead in the stretch, then tired, and Victory Gallop, whom he had beaten in the Derby and Preakness, caught him on the line. The stewards studied the photo before calling it.

Which 1920 legend won the Preakness and Belmont but was never entered in the Kentucky Derby?

Man o' War's owner, Samuel Riddle, thought the Derby came too early in the spring for a young horse. The colt won 20 of his 21 races, and the one horse to beat him was named Upset.

Which trainer won all three 1995 Triple Crown races with different horses?

D. Wayne Lukas ran three horses in the Derby, and it was the longshot of the trio, Thunder Gulch, who won, not Timber Country, the colt he fancied most. Timber Country took the Preakness before Thunder Gulch added the Belmont.