A MARTÍNEZ, BYLINE: Kentucky Derby winner Golden Tempo is skipping the Preakness Stakes tomorrow and will instead wait until June to run at the Belmont Stakes. This is the third Derby winner in five years to skip the second leg of the coveted Triple Crown. Byron King, an editor with BloodHorse, a news publication which covers thoroughbred breeding and racing, is here to break it down. He joins us from Louisville, Kentucky. So, Byron, what did Golden Tempo's trainer, Cherie DeVaux, say about skipping the Preakness?
BYRON KING: Well, one of the challenges of the whole Triple Crown series is the timing of it. So it's two weeks from the Kentucky Derby to the Preakness and then three weeks to the final leg of the series, the Belmont. And for a lot of modern-day thoroughbreds, that time frame of two weeks' rest is less than what a lot of trainers prefer. And she looked at her horse for a few days, analyzed how he came out of the race and felt that it was in his best interest to sit out.
MARTÍNEZ: But wouldn't winning a Triple Crown make a horse a lot more valuable when it comes to breeding later?
KING: It does. In fact, the two current Triple Crown winners that are at stud - Justify and also American Pharoah - these horses are worth, you know, tens of millions of dollars, but they can also become quite valuable winning two legs of the Triple Crown, too. So I think that, you know, they have to weigh that balance.
MARTÍNEZ: How much of this, though, Byron, do you think it's about seeing these horses as investments?
KING: I don't see it that way. In fact, if anything, the whole industry is very focused on equine welfare. One of the things now is there's very little race-day medications. So in the old days, they might have been able to get some nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories to help take away some of the aches and pains from one race to the next. But now these horses have such strict protocols in terms of their going to post without those medications and things that people are making sure that that horse is feeling his best and up to top condition on race day.
MARTÍNEZ: Byron, what do you think is the right balance then between keeping horses healthy and maintaining fan interest? I mean, it's an attention economy right now.
KING: It is. I mean, the Derby had 20 million people watching on television. It was the most viewed Derby in recorded history, according to NBC. And so what happens - you know, you have the first female trainer in the Derby's history to win the race with Golden Tempo. People are so excited. They're eager to see this horse run back. And he's not running. So it leaves, you know, an incomplete feeling with folks. Now, if you stretched it out, let's say, to a month between races, which some people are proposing, that could allow those horses to compete more regularly in all three legs, but it comes with a trade-off of maintaining public interest, as you mentioned. Plus, in these communities where these races are held, they're quite often accustomed and used to having the event on a certain day.
I think you're going to see some changes to the series because while it's an important three legs together, you know, I think of it in, like, almost, like, golf terms, you know, with the majors. If, you know, Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler were skipping key majors because the timing didn't work out, I think we would lose more fans than tinkering with the history.
MARTÍNEZ: That is BloodHorse's Byron King. Byron, thanks a lot.
KING: My pleasure.
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