How Do Horses Qualify For The Triple Crown?

Before a horse like American Pharoah can ever capture the elusive Triple Crown of thoroughbred horseracing, there are many hurdles to overcome. Some of these do not even include running in a race! The road to the Triple Crown is a complicated process that begins before a horse is even born.

The Triple Crown Nomination

It takes a special horse to make a run at the Triple Crown, but the first step on the journey is one that is available to every thoroughbred horse. Connections must follow the nomination process for the relevant three-year-old crop. Filing a nomination and paying its fee are administrative steps, not a guarantee of acceptance into any race. Age, eligibility, the race’s entry conditions and the governing rules still apply. The official nomination process publishes the applicable deadlines; use that year’s form rather than assuming a foal can be nominated at any time.

In many cases, a horse will be considered for nomination to the Triple Crown series by its owners before it is even born, based on the expectations of its breeding. For example, some horse owners that  breed their stakes-winning mares to the 2015 Triple Crown winner American Pharoah will nominate the resultant foal based solely on expectations. This can be risky, of course, but many owners consider the money to be well-spent.

In many cases a horse will be nominated once it has started training and showed flashes of greatness. Owners may plan early, but the formal nomination window is tied to the year in which the horse is eligible for these three-year-old classics. If a horse peaks late, an owner can even make a nomination during the published late-nomination period for the applicable year. The cost, however, goes up substantially as time passes. For the 2017 Triple Crown, the article’s original fee example was $600 for early nomination and $6,000 for late nomination. Those amounts should be read with their year and deadlines attached, rather than as an open-ended current offer.

The Two-Year Old Campaign

One of the strongest statistics in horseracing that holds true almost every single year is that horses which do not begin their racing career as a two-year-old do not win the Kentucky Derby, the first jewel of the Triple Crown. Of course, there are the rare exceptions. Apollo won the 1882 Kentucky Derby without racing at two, and Justify repeated the feat in 2018.

Many trainers will choose to begin a horse’s two-year-old campaign in the spring at Keeneland. Races are held at 4F and give the young horses a chance to get their bearings. Another good track to watch for two-year-old races is Saratoga in August. Many of these young horses emerge as Triple Crown contenders.

The ultimate prize for a two-year-old racehorse is the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile in late October or early November. Oddly enough, the winner of this race has rarely come back to win the Kentucky Derby. Handicappers should pay special attention to the second, third, and fourth place finishers in this race.

How to Use Triple Crown Qualification in Your Handicapping

Understanding how horses qualify for the Triple Crown — through the points series for the Derby, and through each race’s nomination, eligibility and entry conditions for the Preakness and Belmont — provides useful context for assessing field composition in each race. The points system for the Kentucky Derby means that by the time the field is declared, you have a comprehensive record of each horse’s prep race campaign, including which races they targeted, what level of competition they faced, and how their form has developed through the qualification process.

Horses that accumulated Derby points through the stronger qualifier races — the Florida Derby, the Rebel Stakes, the Blue Grass Stakes — have typically been tested against higher-quality opposition than those who qualified through lesser prep races. This quality of competition dimension is not always reflected in simple point totals, making the analysis of which races a horse used to earn their points a genuinely useful handicapping exercise. Similarly, horses that earned significant points early in the series and maintained their form through multiple qualifiers are demonstrating the consistency and durability that the Derby’s demands require, while horses that earned their points in a single dominant performance may have a less reliable form profile. For more on Derby qualification and preparation, our articles on how points are earned for the Kentucky Derby and how do horses qualify for the Triple Crown cover the full qualification framework. And our guide to the Triple Crown explained provides the historical and structural context.

The Prep Race Qualifying Period

The first step to winning the Triple Crown is to win the Kentucky Derby. On the first Saturday in May of each year, up to 20 horses may enter the starting gates at Churchill Downs to compete in the Run for the Roses. Determining which 20 horses will have that opportunity is much more straightforward than it was in recent years. Today, a horse must earn qualifying points in a series of designated races.

Qualifying prep races are held at tracks all over the world. These designated races award points according to the current schedule; the official Road to the Derby guidance now describes awards to the top five finishers in each race. At the end of the prep race period, the horses with the most points are given preference for entering the Kentucky Derby.

The points system prioritizes entry to an oversubscribed Kentucky Derby; it does not rank every horse’s true ability or determine entry to the entire Triple Crown series. Reserved international invitations, tie-breaking procedures and other eligibility provisions also matter. Paying a nomination fee alone does not secure a starting position.

Now that you have a basic understanding of how horses can qualify for the Triple Crown, head over to Bookmaker.eu and sign up for a racebook account  or pick another online racebook. You’ll be able to bet on all the prep races and the races of the Triple Crown, and there are generous bonuses for new players.

Four steps that are often confused

As a dated example, the 2026 nomination form specified $600 through January 26 and $6,000 from January 27 through April 6. Those deadlines have passed. The official Derby qualification guidance should be checked for the next edition; the Preakness and Belmont do not use the Derby points leaderboard as their entry system.