Big changes in horse racing create new questions about the future of the Triple Crown

Two days before Maryland officials were set to make one of the biggest changes to the Triple Crown in horse racing history, the announcement of a new thoroughbred championship series featuring the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes — but not the Preakness — dominated the discourse.

Mark Anthony Thomas of the Greater Baltimore Committee got worried text messages from many in the business community.

“There was immediate concern on two parts,” Thomas said. “One, does this mean the Triple Crown loses its luster? And then second is, how do we fortify the Triple Crown to where it retains its prominence within horse racing?”

The Preakness is moving back to three weeks and a day after the Derby, which will lead off a brand new series of races — and now there are more new questions about the future of the Triple Crown.

Depending on who you talk to in the industry, there are very different answers to that question.

During much of the 37-year drought between Affirmed winning the Triple Crown in 1978 and American Pharoah in 2015, there was plenty of debate over whether it was too difficult for modern 3-year-olds to sweep three races over a five-week span.

“One of the trainers said it to me a few days ago, 'The Triple Crown is supposed to be hard, and it’s not meant to be easy,'” Maryland Jockey Club CEO Bill Knauf said. “It’s a test, and so the great, great horses are the ones that can finish it and complete it and win all three.”

Justify doing it in 2018 quieted the conversation for a bit. Then, in the past several years, trainers and owners increasingly opted to skip the Preakness after running a horse in — or even winning — the Kentucky Derby.

Two Derby champions in a row and three of the past five bypassed the middle leg two weeks later to shoot for the Belmont five weeks later. Stakeholders, even some of the most staunch traditionalists, began to change their minds about the spacing of the Triple Crown.

Right away, it all but certainly means 2027 will be a ninth consecutive year without a Triple Crown winner.

The Kentucky Derby — by far the pinnacle of horse racing and an event that transcends sports — remains entrenched in its sacred place on the first Saturday in May. The Preakness is set to be run on Sunday, May 23.

But with the Thoroughbred Championship Series announcement on Monday also came word that the Belmont will take place on Saturday, June 5. The 13-day turnaround, especially with the Belmont going back to 1 1/2 miles, is an incredibly difficult ask for even the best 3-year-olds and figures to make it a choice between that race and Preakness for at least next year.

“We made the decision upon what we felt was the best move for the Preakness long term,” Knauf said when asked about the concern over the short gap. “That’s what we control, and that’s what the decision was based off of.”

New York Racing Association President and CEO David O'Rourke was asked Monday what would happen if the Preakness moved from its current timing and didn't want to speculate beyond saying, “If anything else changes out there, of course everyone’s going to have a discussion about what does that mean to our game?”

The Belmont has been on the first or second Saturday in June for nearly a century, except for 2020 when the three races were run out of order because of the pandemic. To give enough space for horses to be considered for all three, it would likely have to go back a week or two but still in June.

“Obviously it’s in Belmont’s court now to determine what is best for their race,” Knauf said. “That’s honestly up to them, wholeheartedly. That’s their decision.”

Knauf said Maryland officials were never party to the discussions between NYRA and Churchill Downs Inc. The six-race series takes place at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky; Belmont Park on Long Island and Saratoga Race Course in upstate New York.

It is unclear how much, if at all, a couple of business transactions had on the situation.

In April, Churchill Downs, Inc. agreed to buy the Preakness intellectual property from outgoing owner 1/ST Racing for $85 million with a plan to license it to Maryland annually. The state, which was taking over control from 1/ST Racing, had the right of first refusal to match and opted in June to do so.

“I don’t know if I even realized what the IP acquisition would mean for the industry as a whole as far as the earthquake that would come of that,” Thomas said.

The Preakness' absence was noteworthy. Columns appeared calling the Triple Crown dead. O'Rourke on Monday said “in no way does this touch the Triple Crown.”

“Each spring, the Triple Crown captures the public imagination, creates new fans and brings people together,” O'Rourke said. “The new series builds on the success of the Triple Crown and adds to it.”

Gov. Wes Moore, at a news conference Wednesday in Annapolis, Maryland, said he did not believe the Preakness being excluded was retaliation for holding on to the property rights.

“What I did take from it was it actually validated why we made the decision that we did to hold on to our IP and hold on to our own destiny,” Moore said.

Asked whether the situation affected negotiations, CDI declined to comment through a spokesperson.

That's anyone's guess after two major moves in a three-day span for an industry that is usually stubbornly resistant to change.

The championship series got hearty endorsements from two-time Triple Crown-winning Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert and prominent owner Mike Repole.

“I am in favor of any and all new ideas to grow racing and increase interest in our sport,” Baffert said on social media, while also praising the virtues of the Triple Crown. “The Preakness is integral to racing’s history, present and future, and I hope nothing detracts from its significance.”

Repole said, “Powerful entities and influential leaders working together, collaborating and thinking beyond their own self-interest, that is what can turn this industry around.”

More collaboration as the situation develops could be key to a possible solution. Perhaps the Preakness becomes part of the series or the Belmont moves to later in June as part of a new era of horse racing.

“We’ll have conversations,” Knauf said, “and see where it all develops down the road.”

AP horse racing: https://apnews.com/hub/horse-racing

FILE - Horses compete during the 151st running of the Preakness Stakes horse race, May 16, 2026, at Laurel Park in Laurel, Md. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)

FILE - Fans watch as Golden Tempo (19) ridden by Jose L. Ortiz wins the 152nd running of the Kentucky Derby horse race at Churchill Downs, May 2, 2026, in Louisville, Ky. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Firefighters have taken advantage of cooler weather to begin getting a handle on wildfires that have displaced tens of thousands of people around Washington state's second-largest city, but hotter, drier and breezier days lie ahead.

Officials reported Wednesday that firefighters had established containment lines around the perimeters of all three fires affecting Spokane and that they were focused on reinforcing those lines. Temperatures were expected to climb from the 80s the past two days into the upper 90s (36-37 degrees Celsius), with less humidity, late this week.

The fires — one of which authorities say was deliberately set by a man who was arrested and charged with arson — have destroyed about 850 buildings and forced the evacuation of around 67,000 people since they erupted last weekend. Damage assessment crews have yet to tally exactly how many houses have been lost or damaged. No deaths have been reported.

The other two fires were also started by people, though not necessarily deliberately, investigators have said. They remain under investigation. Those fires, the Autumn Lane and Fairview fires, started independently of the arson-caused Old Trails Fire, they said.

Spokane County Sheriff John Nowels said during a Wednesday news conference that the evacuation zones will remain in place due to incoming weather and fire danger.

“We are not going to be downgrading these zones in any large way for many, many more days to come," he said. “If we let people back in and we don’t have a high degree of certainty the fire lines will hold, we will put people in danger.”

Many evacuees remained in a shelter set up in a Spokane convention center, at hotels or rentals, or at the homes of friends or relatives, with no idea of how soon they might go back — if they have a house to return to.

“We figured it would be a day or two, not four or five. It’s not the best situation,” said Debra Curran, who has been staying at the convention center since Saturday with her husband, who has ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Their house survived, but her husband would need to be transported by ambulance, which officials won't do until the fire risk in their neighborhood drops.

Among those under evacuation orders are patients and staff from the Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center in Spokane. When the fire approached on Saturday, the staff moved 27 patients to local hospitals and temporary shelters, said Bret Bowers, a spokesperson for the center. The medical center was not burned in the fire but several staff lost their homes.

Adam Wilson, a communications officer at the Washington State Auditor's Office, fled Saturday with his wife and three children, ages 9, 14 and 16. They had moved into their Spokane home a little over a month earlier and were still unpacking, he said.

Since then, they've stayed at a hotel 90 minutes to the south and with his father in Idaho. This weekend, they'll move again, to a rental home in Spokane that their insurance is covering.

Their house is fine, Wilson said, despite flames that leveled an entire cul-de-sac just two blocks away, leaving only chimneys standing in some cases. The neighborhood remains under an evacuation order. Even if they could return, there's no power and no internet service, and no information about how soon either will be restored.

“What you really want to hear, nobody can tell you,” Wilson said. “It is oddly emotional and disorienting. We did not lose any property. From the outside it looks like a family trip — ‘Hey, kids, we’re going to go visit Papa for a week, pack your bags.' ... And yet you feel like something isn't right.”

The fires were among dozens across the Western U.S. that have stretched the ability of federal, state and local agencies to fight them. In Washington, there are 16 uncontained wildfires burning more than 672 square miles (1,740 square km) and being fought by more than 7,000 fire personnel, said Thomas Kyle-Milward, a spokesperson for the Washington Department of Natural Resources.

“We’re looking down the barrel at one of the worst fire seasons in state history,” he said.

U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington said Wednesday that senators had received a briefing from Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Wildland Fire Service Director Brian Fennessy, who assured them that keeping firefighting assets, including ground crews and aircraft, in the Northwest is a priority.

“We are still at the highest risk in the nation and appreciate being the highest resourced,” Cantwell said in a written statement.

The man charged with starting the Old Trails Fire, Aaron F. Farinacci, 37, of Spokane, was expected to be arraigned Thursday. According to court documents, he was arrested after a resident reported him being in the area where the fire began. He denied having started it when questioned by deputies.

Authorities said they previously contacted him during two fire investigations last year, including one in a state park that prompted evacuation notices, though he wasn’t charged in either.

In California, authorities said Wednesday that they arrested a 65-year-old man on suspicion of sparking a major wildfire by recklessly operating equipment without complying with state fire prevention requirements. Prosecutors will determine whether to file criminal charges. The blaze that erupted Monday had scorched nearly 15 square miles (39 square kilometers) of forest in Calaveras County southeast of Sacramento.

This story has been corrected to show that the last name of the VA medical center spokesperson is Bowers, not Bower.

Johnson and Bellisle reported from Seattle. Associated Press writer Ed White contributed from Detroit.

Firefighters inspect an area at Wyakin Park after a wildfire hit the northern part of Spokane, Wash., Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson) CORRECTION: Wyakin Park, not Weaken Park

A line of burned cars sit in a parking lot Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2026, after a wildfire hit the northern part of Spokane, Wash. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

A burned section of trees is marked with pink tape Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2026, in an area near the origin point of the Old Trails Fire, after a man was arrested, suspected of starting the wildfire in Spokane, Wash. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

A burned truck sits in a driveway near several destroyed homes in a residential neighborhood Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2026, after a wildfire hit the northern part of Spokane, Wash. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

Michelle Angstrom reacts to her burned down home and property after a wildfire hit the northwest part of Spokane, Wash., Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)