KENTUCKY DERBY WINNER TO BYPASS THE PREAKNESS

By Graham Potter | Wednesday, May 7, 2025

There will be no winner of the Thoroughbred Triple Crown in America this year … not because of any possible shortcomings in the makeup of Godolphin’s Kentucky Derby winner Sovereignty, but because of that stable’s decision to bypass the Preakness … the second leg of the Triple Crown … in favour of going directly to the Belmont Stakes.

As reported in The Thoroughbred Daily News, that decision was confirmed in a press release from Mike Rodgers, executive Vice-President of 1/ST who runs Pimlicao Race Course.

The Triple Crown presents an ultra-testing task for three-year-olds tackling different distances over an intense five-week period starting the first Saturday in May, to the extent that only thirteen horses have completed the Triple Crown since the Kentucky Derby was first run in 1875.

The horses to have won the Triple Crown are: Sir Barton (1919), Gallant Fox (1930), Omaha (1935), War Admiral (1937), Whirlaway (1941), Count Fleet (1943), Assault (1946), Citation (1948), Secretariat (1973), Seattle Slew (1977), Affirmed (1978), American Pharoah (2015), and Justify (2018).

Fifty-two years after his heroics on the track, the mighty Secretariat, whose star will never fade, still holds the race record for each individual leg of the Triple Crown.