Making the Grade, which will run through the 2020 Triple Crown races, focuses on the winners or top performers of the key races, usually from the previous weekend, who could make an impact on the Triple Crown. We’ll be taking a close look at impressive winners and evaluating their chances to win classic races based upon ability, running style, connections (owner, trainer, jockey), and pedigree.

A historian might be needed to find the last time a trainer skipped a Triple Crown race in favor of a prep race for the Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve.

Yet here in 2020, with the world facing problems no one could have foreseen from the COVID-19 pandemic, that exact set of circumstances unfolded June 6 and the man who made that decision was delighted at the way it turned out.