Home

You may be right, Jason. Consider the Baffert barn alone: Coil, Smash, Jaycito, The Factor, Awesome Patriot, Uncle Sam, plus Midnight Interlude. Surely at least one of those will have a big year.

I would say most if not all of these factors are relevant. ... Seems to me the Preakness can be a more fairly run race ... and if the winner (who didn't win the Derby) skips the Belmont Stakes and points to key summer and fall races, he has more time to develop and win a championship. ... All I know is this list tells a tale, just not sure why it happens this way.

I think you isolated the key variables, with the first 3 being most important.  The distance, a sixteenth of a mile shorter than the Derby, better showcases the more brilliant 3 year olds; the smaller field size does allow for a more genuine result; and finally there are fewer "No-Hopers" in the Preakness than in the Derby, in part because of the smaller field size but also because fewer owners are stricken with "Preakness Fever" than "Derby Fever", and  those "No Hopers" that did run in the Derby have fallen by the wayside come Preakness time.

I think all five of your points play into why the Preakness creates champions, but distance is a main one. Americans breed for speed over stamina, and early development over horses that mature later. Certainly Belmont winners don't get nearly as much respect, probably because there are almost no opportunities for a true distance-running 3-year-old to prove his or her quality, especially against other 3-year-olds. It's easier for horses that like races under 10 furlongs, because there are lots of opportunities for them to show how good they are.