Extending time between classic races would make Triple Crown harder to win

I am on a crusade to rid the world of thinking that increasing the length of time between classic races would somehow make it easier to sweep the Triple Crown

The series receives a fair amount of discussion every year with the most frequent topic being lengthening the series from three races in five weeks to at least seven weeks (three weeks to Preakness, four weeks to Belmont) and as much as nine weeks (four weeks to Preakness, five weeks to Belmont).

The primary counterpoint to this argument is that making the Triple Crown easier to win would cheapen it.

I agree that making the Triple Crown easier to win would cheapen it, but I vehemently disagree with the notion that spreading the races would make it easier to sweep them with a brush let alone a three-year-old.

Yes, Super Saver flopped in his Preakness attempt off two weeks rest following his Derby win, but surely you noticed that the winner of the race also had started in the Derby?

Trainer Todd Pletcher acknowledged many times between the two races that his charges typically do their best work on 35-60 days rest. That seems to me to be a question of his own regimen and not what the top athletes in the game are capable of in other training programs.

Racing Hall of Fame trainers Bob Baffert and D. Wayne Lukas have both said that the Preakness is easier than the Belmont for a Derby starter because of the two-week rest. Baffert has said his job with Silver Charm, Real Quiet, and War Emblem was not to train those horses up to the Preakness but rather maintain their fitness level from the Derby. The Belmont, however, on three weeks rest, required more training and left more margin for error in getting them ready.

"The horse gets me through the Preakness, and then I have to get it through the Belmont, which was probably why they didn't win those races," Baffert said in 2008 during Big Brown's Triple Crown chase. "Two weeks isn't enough time for me to mess them up."

And Lukas expressed similar sentiments regarding Charismatic, who won the Derby on two-weeks rest before winning the Preakness also on two-weeks' rest.

But back to Pletcher. Clearly, he would have preferred more time with Super Saver, but he's not the only one. Zito is running Ice Box in the Belmont after skipping the Preakness. If there had been three or four weeks between the Derby and Preakness would Ice Box have run? If he had run would he have been favored? How does that make Super Saver's task easier?

If the Belmont got pushed back to mid or late June, the door opens significantly for later-maturing three-year-olds to be ready for the race even if they sat out the first two legs. How does that make Super Saver's task easier?

It doesn't.

There have been three Triple Crown winners in 62 seasons, and it's difficulty is part of its mystique, but increasing the time between races  would not make the task easier--it would make it impossible.