Quote:
Originally Posted by RacingFan1992
Come back to this post and tell me I'm wrong when a Triple Crown winner raced in December/January but until then I'm going to stand by my statement: avoid horses racing this time of year.
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Let's be clear; your statement should be specifically: avoid Derby/Preakness winners in the Belmont Stakes if they raced in December/January between their juvenile and sophomore years. On that alone, even if legit, it would be a rarely useful betting 'angle'.
And Real Quiet's effort in the 1998 Belmont where he lost in a closest of photos--despite running in the HP Futurity & Golden Gate Derby--clearly betrays any sort of notion that your assertion actually holds any causal association between running in those months and winning the TC. Unfortunately, although both those races were historically productive races for the individual classics, neither exists currently in a state that will consistently attract top level classic prospects any more.
I also hope I made clear that your assertion is only genuinely based on a total of 2 Triple Crown winners. Only American Pharoah and Justify had legitimate reasons or even opportunities to run in a winter race. As I said, anything from the 30s thru 60s was not running in the winter time. We don't need to go over the trials and tribulations of Assault or Citation et al. because there was scant opportunity to run those horses in Dec-Jan.
All that aside, you are ignoring a growing trend that started at the turn of the century and if were to continue would make your assertion practically moot.
The last 5 Derby winners and the last 5 Derby first place finishers and this year's runner-up (who might be declared the winner at a later date) all broke their maiden between Dec-Feb and/or started in a race in January. The trend is for trainers to start their 2yos much later in the year. Once quite productive races like the Hopeful, Futurity, Sapling, and even the DM Futurity have lost most of their significance when it comes to the Triple Crown.
