Now that the Big 3 is over. What race should I look forward to now?

Question

I assume the Derby, Preakness and The Belmont Stakes are the big 3? Why are they considered the best races? Sorry, but I am very curious and find this a fasinating subject. Thanks for your answers!

Answer 1

Travers and the Haskell.

Answer 2

The Travers!! Held at Saratoga.

The Derby, Preakness and Belmont are considered the best, because it is so hard to win all three. I mean, you have three races in a 6-week period. You have to have a pretty good horse to even RUN in all three.

Answer 3

There are several big prominant stake races through out the year. But I think the next biggest race that gets the media attention like the Triple Crown races does is the Breeder's Cup in October.

Answer 4

The next BIG race day is the Breeder's Cup.

It is held at a different American race track every October.

This year it will be at Monmouth Park in New Jersey on Saturday, Oct. 27. Check out this link for a more detailed description of the Breeder's Cup.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeders'_C...

Answer 5

The Breeder's Cup Championships, The Travers (Go Street Sense!), and the Haskell Invitational!

Answer 6

The Triple Crown has the three most publicized horse races.  There are a lot of horse races, but the Triple Crown races are ones you can bring up in a conversation and not have other people going "Huh?  What are you talking about?"  The next race I'm looking forward to is the Breeder's Cup Classic.  I don't usually get to watch it, but hopefully that will change this year.

Answer 7

Many people think that the Triple Crown races feature the best horses running at any given time. This is almost never the case. Rarely can the best  3 year old beat the best older horse. It's like NCAA basketball vs. the NBA. Racehorses don't fully mature until they are 4, even 5 sometimes.

As Karin says above, the Hollywood Gold Cup is on June 30 with Lava Man, a former claiming horse who has dominated Cal races for older horses for years now. This (I think) will be his first race on the new synthetic surface (polytrack), but he has handled both turf and dirt well previously so he should be fine. It is amazing to think that he was claimed out of a race a few years ago and  has won millions of dollars since.

On that same day (6/30) is the Suburban Handicap at Belmont, which is expected to include Invasor, who is (no exaggeration) the Best Horse in the World. He won the Breeder's Cup Classic last year, and won the Dubai World Cup (against horses from all over the world) this year. To give you some idea (based on his times and speed figures) he is running about 10-15 lengths faster than the likes of Street Sense, Curlin and  Rags to Riches. He would simply crush those horses. It is unlikely that any of them will even try to face him until possibly this year's Breeder's Cup.

So about 7000 people will probably show up to see Invasor in the Suburban, while ten times as many show up for the Belmont. But that is the way it is, the casual fans just follow the three year olds and really don't have an idea about the whole racing picture. To answer your question, the "big 3" are not the best races, they are just the ones that the popular media covers and focuses on. Sort of like how the NBA doesn't produce nearly the media frenzy that March Madness does.

Answer 8

FOR 3 YEAR OLDS, BUT RACING WILL TAKE IT UP A NOTCH LATER THIS YEAR, WHEN THEY RUN THE BREEDERS CUP RACES AT MONMOUTH PARK, IN NEW JERSEY, IT'S THE CHAMPIOSHIP DAY IN RACING, THE DERBY HORSES WILL ALL FACE OLDER HORSES AND THE GREAT "INVASOR" WILL RUN THEM OFF THEIR FEET.....

Answer 9

Oh my goodness.  Which is the next big race?  There are so many!

Out here in California, we're looking to see if Lava Man can win the Hollywood Gold Cup.  That's on June 30th.  If Lava Man wins that, he joins California favorite son Native Diver as the only other 3-time winner of this race.  

At Del Mar in August, there's the $1,000,000 Pacific Classic, again with Lava Man, assuming he comes out of the Gold Cup all right.  In the eastern part of the country, we have some great races coming up:  the Whitney and Alabama, the Travers Stakes, The Arlington Million on turf;  The Haskell Stakes at Monmouth Park, the Oak Tree Invitational at Santa Anita in the fall;  The Man O' War and the Yellow Ribbon Stakes-- every weekend, literally, somewhere in the country there are top horses going to the track in races worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, races with histories as storied as the Triple Crown races.

The Triple Crown is really a media invention.  There are races that are every bit as important to the championship aspirations of the horses running in them as the Triple Crown races.  

If you want to continue to follow racing, here are a couple of websites I recommend that will keep you abreast of all the racing news:

http://www.bloodhorse.com/index.asp

http://www.thoroughbredtimes.com/default...

You are right, racing is a fascinating subject, so much so that you can spend a lifetime reading about it, studying it, watching it, participating in it, and never reach the end of it.  I hope you will continue to follow racing and enjoy it.

Answer 10

The next big race should be the Travers - held at Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga NY. About the 3rd week of the meet I think, unless they've changed it.  

Rumor has Street Sense, Curlin and Rags to Riches in that one.  Time will tell of course.