Churchill Downs and NYRA Launch a Six-Race Series With a $5 Million Bonus — and No Preakness

American racing's two biggest power centres have drawn up a new season-long championship — and left the sport's middle jewel out of it. Churchill Downs Inc. and the New York Racing Association announced a six-race series on Monday, running from 2027 with a $5 million bonus at the finish. The Preakness Stakes is nowhere on the schedule.

The Triple Crown has been losing its grip on the sport for some time. Trainers have grown steadily more reluctant to run a horse three times in five weeks, and the classic sequence has increasingly looked like a relic that the rest of the racing calendar has moved past. Monday's announcement may prove to be the decisive break.

What the six-race series looks like

The new format spreads its legs across roughly five months and splits them between the two partners' venues, replacing the compressed spring dash with something closer to a full campaign:

• Kentucky Derby — 1 May, Churchill Downs
• Belmont Stakes — 5 June, NYRA
• Matt Winn Stakes — early July, back at Churchill Downs
• Jim Dandy Stakes — late July, Saratoga
• Travers Stakes — August, Saratoga
• A newly created race — September, Churchill Downs

The shape of it is telling. Rather than asking a three-year-old to prove itself over five brutal weeks in spring, the series rewards a horse that can stay sound and competitive from the first Saturday in May through to the autumn — with the $5 million bonus as the incentive to keep showing up.

Branded the Thoroughbred Championship Series, the format runs on a single points table. The $5 million pool is paid out according to the final standings, on top of the purses of the individual races, and NYRA chief executive David O'Rourke said a horse will need to start in four of the six legs before it can qualify for any share of the bonus. The Belmont leg will be staged at the newly rebuilt Belmont Park.

Television is built into the plan. The three Churchill Downs races are due to air on NBC and the three NYRA races on FOX — two networks that normally fight over racing rights rather than hand viewers to each other. The partners said they would work jointly on rules, nominations, marketing, sponsorship and wagering, with the detailed points system, eligibility conditions and prize split to be published later.

O'Rourke, speaking to reporters after a truncated media call, rejected the idea that the Triple Crown was being replaced, saying the points format "builds on top of the Triple Crown alongside it." He also left the door open to wider cooperation, noting that no talks had yet been held about the Haskell Stakes or the Pennsylvania Derby, two seven-figure summer races for three-year-olds.

The missing jewel

The absence that everyone noticed is the Preakness. Two of the three Triple Crown races are in the new series; the middle leg, the one owned by neither Churchill Downs nor NYRA, is not. Whatever the commercial reasoning, the practical effect is that the sport's two largest operators have built a marquee championship that simply routes around it.

For a series designed to crown the best three-year-old in America, leaving out a classic that has been part of that conversation for a century and a half is not a scheduling detail. It is a statement about where the commercial gravity in the sport now sits — and about who gets to define what winning means.

The race was already under strain. Neither of the last two Kentucky Derby winners, Sovereignty in 2025 and Golden Tempo in 2026, went on to Baltimore, and only three horses from this year's Derby field lined up in the Preakness, which was won by Napoleon Solo. The 2026 edition was run at Laurel Park on a pared-back footprint while Pimlico is demolished and rebuilt, with ticketing limited to 4,800.

A tug-of-war over the Preakness brand

The snub follows a spring in which Churchill Downs tried to buy its way into the Preakness. In April, CDI agreed to pay 1/ST Racing, also known as The Stronach Group, $85 million for the intellectual property rights to the Preakness and the Black-Eyed Susan Stakes. When Maryland had taken over Pimlico in 2024, 1/ST had kept those rights and was paid a yearly fee by the state for their use.

Maryland law, however, gave the state the chance to match any sale. In June, Governor Wes Moore did exactly that, committing the same $85 million, financed through bonds issued by the Maryland Economic Development Corporation and repaid from racing revenue over 30 years. The state is also buying Laurel Park from 1/ST for $48.5 million to turn it into a year-round training base. Less than two months after losing that contest, Churchill Downs had joined NYRA in a championship that bypasses the race altogether.

Maryland's answer: a Sunday Preakness

Maryland did not wait long. At a press conference on Wednesday 5 August, Moore said the 2027 Preakness will be run on Sunday 23 May, 22 days after the Derby rather than the customary two weeks, with the Black-Eyed Susan moving to the Saturday. The Maryland Jockey Club also announced a new agreement keeping the race on NBC through 2032.

NYRA responded that the Belmont Stakes stays on Saturday 5 June, which would leave only 13 days between the second and third legs. Moore framed the date change as a way to give Derby horses enough recovery time to keep the Triple Crown alive.

A divided response from horsemen

Owner Mike Repole welcomed the rare alignment between the two biggest track operators and their broadcast partners. Two-time Triple Crown-winning trainer Bob Baffert said he would compete in the new series but insisted the Triple Crown remains the sport's supreme prize, and later praised the extra week between the Derby and the Preakness.

What is at stake is a tradition with only 13 winners since Sir Barton first swept the three races in 1919, the most recent being Justify in 2018. The 2027 season will now test whether trainers chase that history, the new $5 million prize, or try to have both.