SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY, May 19, 2010--I don’t know about you feel about it, but I’m getting a little tired of reading the opinions of general sports columnists on the future of the American Triple Crown series.

These people show up on three racing days a year, maybe five, and have a take on how the Triple Crown is not broken, how any change desecrates the past, and what a ludicrous idea it would be to try to change any of it.

Well, that’s a lot like saying the sport isn’t broken and there’s no need to fix it, either. I’m not the world’s biggest bettor, but until these columnists bet 10 cents for every dollar I put through the windows, they would do all racing fans a favor if they ignored the sport the other 362 days, too.

Until these geniuses went on record, you might have noticed during the run-up to Preakness and Belmont that sentiment for elongating the Triple Crown series started to gain some momentum. It was about trying to make each event better which, of course, helps the entire series.

And so, at this point, for the third time in the last 60 years, the Derby and Preakness winner won’t rubber-match on Long Island and, with the defection of Dublin, no three- year-old will have started in all three races. Does that sound like a series that’s working?

Before examining current realities, which industry executives seldom do enthusiastically if at all, let’s take a look back. For openers, can we all stop god-ding up the horses of yesteryear?

They were almost a different breed. They were tougher, but they were slower, too. It was a time when stamina was valued over speed, when racing was valued over the auction ring. It seems we can’t have an abundance of both traits these days. On balance, speed and stamina are mutually exclusive gifts.

And how many Man o’ Wars, Citations and Secretariats can this sport expect to see? As many as baseball gets to see a Ruth, Cobb, Cy Young and Rivera? As often as basketball sees a Mikan, Oscar, Magic and Michael? About a handful per century?

The tide of sentiment has begun to change as more veteran observers are calling for a schedule more in sync with the physiology of the modern thoroughbred that bears no resemblance to the Triple Crown winners of the 1970s, never mind those from 1919 to 1948.

Traditionalists who believe that lengthening the series does a disservice to past Triple Crown champions are wrong. Since 2006, we have written that lengthening the series makes the task more difficult, not less. Consider:

Prior to this year’s Preakness, Daily Racing Form correspondent Marcus Hersh asked a dozen of the sport’s leading horsemen about the degree of difficulty training an aspiring classicist for a period of five weeks, especially the two weeks between the Derby and Preakness.

"I seldom run them back in less than a month," said Funny Cide’s trainer, Barclay Tagg. "I found that if you came out of the Derby all right, [two weeks] was actually perfect timing," said Billy Turner, trainer of the legendary Seattle Slew.

"Usually, a horse that wins the Derby is a good horse that's peaking and in the zone… The Preakness, it's the easiest of all [Triple Crown] races," said Bob Baffert, who proved it by winning his fifth middle jewel with Lookin At Lucky.

"The two weeks is not hard to do because you're already there," said Hall of Famer Carl Nafzger said. "Longer would be worse… Then you'd have to worry." "You get to the Preakness on momentum," said Neil Drysdale, trainer of Derby winner Fusaichi Pegasus.

"In those days a horse that was doing well, the timing was to run every two weeks,” added Turner. "Years ago, I'd run back in a week,” volunteered Tagg. But these days, horses racing back without sufficient recovery time are the exception, not the rule.

The Preakness should be moved back two weeks, despite Pimlico’s predictable objection on economic grounds, to increase the chances of getting more Derby horses back for the second leg. That would require moving Pimlico's opening day up a week, easily do-able.

With the present five-week schedule, most Derby horses either skip the last two legs entirely or choose one or the other, but not both. Why? Because most championships are still won in the summer and fall. There is neither money nor Eclipse style points in horse racing for trying to make history.

If, then, the Belmont Stakes is moved back to July 4th weekend, the chances of horses running in all three events would increase significantly. And there would still be sufficient recovery time for subsequent starts in the Haskell and/or Travers.

As was suggested in the DRF survey, an eight-week series would make it more difficult for trainers to sweep all three, even with a superior animal. As for series continuity, skipping the Preakness in favor of the Belmont no longer would be an attractive option; two months is a very long time between starts, especially for one at 12 furlongs.

Since 1886, there have been 12 winners of the English Triple Crown and the 14-furlong-plus St. Leger Stakes is run in September. Does that timing cheapen the accomplishments of Nijinsky, Bahram and Gainsborough? And is that somehow less than the accomplishments of Affirmed, Seattle Slew and Secretariat?

America’s fascination with the Kentucky Derby makes the day feel like a national holiday. On the first Sunday in May, “Sports Reporters” panelist Mike Lupica, no fan of racing, talked about how he loved the Derby spectacle because of it’s link to the sport’s glory days. That feeling will never change.

Then, two weeks ago, disappointed because he hoped New York would get a chance to host a Triple Crown bid, Lupica said he loved watching the drama of the Preakness stretch run unfold before adding “unfortunately, the racing season ended yesterday.”

A scheduling change extends racing’s only enduring event by a month, and Memorial Day and July 4th ARE a national holidays. It gives the connections of Derby entrants time to run back in the second leg and almost another five weeks until the Belmont.

The compressed promotional campaign of a five-week series might provide momentum for keeping the interest level high but isn’t that a sensible trade off for extending racing’s most popular event another month, giving the Preakness and Belmont national holiday identities that could help both events stand alone better than they do now?

And doesn’t this--as the popular phrase thrown around by horsemen for the public’s consumption, especially in times marred by tragedy--really do what’s best for the horse? The series can no longer, nor should it, exist solely as a paean to the past.

Tomorrow: How the Triple Crown’s past can better serve the present and future