Justify’s sweep of the American Triple Crown races in 2018 elevated him into the rarified company of twelve other colts. One could debate—with no provable conclusion—how Justify measures up among the 13 Triple Crown champs in terms of ability. While that question cannot be answered, the Triple Crown winners can be compared with surety on earnings.
Start with how each colt ranks on the metric of total career earnings. In the first presentation below, the Triple Crown winners are rank ordered from most career earnings to least. All earnings are stated in 2018 dollars. Each colt’s number of career starts is also shown and then followed by the number of wins, places, and shows.
Citation (1948) 45 32 10 2 $11,525, 915
Whirlaway (1941) 60 32 15 9 $10,012,863
Affirmed (1978) 29 22 5 1 $9,636, 094
Assault (1946) 42 18 6 7 $9,337,371
American Pharoah (2015) 11 9 1 0 $9,636,094
Secretariat (1973) 21 16 3 1 $7,776,833
Seattle Slew (1977) 17 14 2 0 $5,198,307
War Admiral (1937) 26 21 3 1 $4,875,454
Gallant Fox (1930) 17 11 3 2 $4,828,209
Justify (2018) 6 6 0 0 $3,798,000
Count Fleet (1943) 21 16 4 1 $3,726,182
Omaha (1935) 22 9 7 2 $2,862,461
Sir Barton (1919) 31 13 6 5 $1,781,807
The next ranking depicts how much each colt earned per start (in 2018 dollars), which compensates for the vast difference in number of starts. Whirlaway, for example, had the most career starts at 60 and Justify the least at six.
American Pharoah $848,376
Justify $633,000
Secretariat $370,325
Affirmed $332,279
Seattle Slew $305,783
Gallant Fox $284,012
Citation $256,131
Assault $222,318
War Admiral $187,517
Count Fleet $177,437
Whirlaway $166,881
Omaha $130,112
Sir Barton $57,478
Copyright © 2018 Horse Racing Business
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