Preakness moved back eight days on calendar for 2027
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The Triple Crown as you know it is no more.
The Preakness Stakes, which since 1969 has been run two weeks after the Kentucky Derby and three weeks before the Belmont Stakes – save 2020 due to the COVID pandemic – will in 2027 be run at Pimlico on May 23, a Sunday, eight days after its usual place on the calendar, 22 days after the Kentucky Derby, and just 13 days before the June 5 Belmont Stakes.
The schedule change was announced Wednesday in a press release put out by the Maryland Jockey Club, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, and NBC Sports, which will retain the rights to broadcast the Preakness through 2032. NBC outbid Fox Sports, among others, for the right to broadcast the Preakness, which it has televised since 2001.
The Preakness was moved back by eight days in hopes of attracting more horses from the Kentucky Derby to run in the race. In an era where trainers want more time between starts for their horses, running back in two weeks at this level has not been popular. Three of the last five Kentucky Derby winners – Rich Strike in 2022, Sovereignty in 2025, and Golden Tempo this year – bypassed the Preakness to run in the Belmont Stakes five weeks later. Moreover, only three horses from four of the last five Derbies ran back in the Preakness. In 2023, only Kentucky Derby winner Mage ran in the Preakness.
The schedule change to the Preakness was announced two days after Churchill Downs Inc., which hosts the Kentucky Derby, and the New York Racing Association, which hosts the Belmont Stakes, announced a lucrative six-race series for 3-year-olds that included those two races but not the Preakness. During that announcement, the date of the Belmont Stakes was announced as June 5, and that is not expected to change in the wake of the Preakness date change.
It is believed the Preakness would have been part of the series had CDI been able to purchase the intellectual property rights to the race. In April, it had made an $85 million offer to 1/ST Racing for those rights, but in an 11th-hour decision, the state of Maryland matched that offer to gain those property rights.
It was not immediately clear why the race was moved to a Sunday, though it was announced that the Black-Eyed Susan program, which had been run on the Friday before the Preakness, will now be run on Saturday.
“Our focus is to preserve the tradition of horses running back in the Preakness and to enhance participation in the Triple Crown races,” Bill Knauf, president and general manager for the Maryland Jockey Club, said in a press release. “We acknowledge the great history of the traditional Triple Crown spacing between races, but recognize that change must always be examined. This is common in all professional sports. Now is the time for the Preakness.”
Knauf pointed out that in most years the fourth weekend of May is Memorial Day weekend. In 2027, that is not the case as May has five weekends with Memorial Day falling on May 31.
The Preakness will return to Pimlico in 2027, even though a rebuilt grandstand is not expected to be completed. This year’s Preakness, which included 14 horses but only three from the Derby, was held at Laurel Park to a limited on-track crowd.
There have been 13 Triple Crown winners. Only the last five – Secretariat (1973), Seattle Slew (1977), Affirmed (1978), American Pharoah (2015), and Justify (2018) – have occurred under the current spacing that’s been in place the last 58 years. Of the other eight Triple Crown winners – between 1919-48 – there have been six different schedules, including Gallant Fox’s year, 1930, when the Preakness was run eight days before the Kentucky Derby.
Since NYRA is not expected to move the Belmont from its June 5 date, should a horse win the Kentucky Derby and Preakness, it would mean that horse would have to run back in 13 days to attempt to win the Triple Crown, an unlikely scenario.
The series announced Monday by NYRA and CDI offers alternatives and disrupts the Triple Crown series. The Thoroughbred Championship Series consists of six races for 3-year-olds, each with a minimum purse value of $1 million. In addition to the $5 million Kentucky Derby and $2 million Belmont, those races include the Matt Winn at Churchill, the Jim Dandy and Travers at Saratoga, and a race to be determined at Churchill Downs in September. Horses who participate in at least four of those races become eligible to share in a $5 million prize pool that pays out to the top eight points earners.
During a half-hour press conference in Annapolis, government and racing officials made two references to the series that NYRA and CDI announced Monday.
Moore, in also acknowledging the state's maintaining the intellectual property rights to the Preakness, said, “In Maryland we control our own destiny. We don’t need others help to do it. The Preakness can and will remain the second jewel of the Triple Crown and nothing will change that.”
Knauf, who did acknowledge the CDI-NYRA series, said, “We look forward to more details coming out on that. The majority of that series’ races are actually in the summer and fall. But we stand up here today and the Preakness is focused on the Triple Crown. The Triple Crown has been going for 100 years and it’s going to be around for 100 more and it will always run through Pimlico.”
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