It wasn’t that long ago that sports betting fans were wondering if they’d ever see another Triple Crown winner. After all, many horse racing fans weren’t even alive the last time it happened back in 1978, when Affirmed won the Triple Crown by taking the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs, the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course and the Belmont Stakes at Belmont Park. But then the remarkable finally happened, and American Pharoah because the first Triple Crown winner in 37 years when he turned the trick in 2015. Then, amazingly, it happened again this year when Justify became just the 13th Triple Crown winner in history. Perhaps even more remarkable is the fact that both of the recent Triple Crown winners were trained by Bob Baffert.
The good news for fans of horse racing is that Justify is expected to continue racing this year. You can be sure that people will be scoping out betting sites in search of the best odds for wagering on one of the most popular racehorses in recent history. It’s safe to say that Justify will be a huge favorite in any of his remaining races, which will likely end with an appearance in the Breeders’ Cup Classic in November, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make money by betting on him. Even though he was the favorite in the Kentucky Derby, the superfecta returned an amazing payoff of nearly $20,000, due in large part to huge longshot Instilled Regard getting up to finish fourth.
It won’t be long now before we start looking forward to next year’s Triple Crown and the discussion will again come back to whether the impossible can happen again. Only once in history have there been back to back Triple Crown winners, and that came in 1977 and 1978 when Seattle Slew did it followed by Affirmed. But of course there was a 37-year drought after that, so there’s really no way to predict when we might see it happen again. Even though it seems like the odds would be against it, especially considering there are about 22,500 Thoroughbreds foaled each year, few people thought we’d see it happen twice in the past few years. And it’s worth noting that when we did have Triple Crown winners in the 1930s, 1940s and 1970s, there were at least three of them in each of those decades, so we might be due for at least one more this decade. Stay tuned!