When Shackleford beat Animal Kingdom two weeks ago in the Preakness it ensured that for the 33rd straight year we won't have a horse win the Triple Crown, a feat that requires that a horse win three races in seven weeks.  Horse racing is not the only sport with a Triple Crown award as baseball also has its versions.

The Baseball Almanac states that the Triple Crown is "awarded" (received or honored with as no physical award exists) to the hitter who leads his own League in all three of these hitting statistics: 1: Home runs. 2: Batting average. 3: Runs batted in. All three categories must be led or tied at the end of the season in order to be part of a Triple Crown performance. Few players have ever come close and when a player simply leads in two categories it is often a noteworthy achievement. Meanwhile there is also a Triple Crown of pitching that's "awarded" to the pitcher who leads — or ties — his league in three major pitching areas: 1: wins 2: strikeouts and 3: earned run average.

While there hasn't been a hitter to win the Triple Crown since Carl Yastrzemski did it in 1967, there have been several pitchers in recent years to accomplish the feat. Jake Peavy won the NL's pitching Triple Crown in 2007 and Johan Santana won it in the AL for the Twins in 2006. In fact, since horse racing's last Triple Crown winner, Affirmed in 1978, there have been a total of seven pitchers to win a Triple Crown.

That leads me to the point of this post, which of the Triple Crowns are the most impressive?

It is easy to see that a pitcher that dominates a league for a year can walk away with all the hardware. However, in today's modern era it is rare to see a power hitter that also hits for average. Albert Pujols and Alex Rodriguez have come close in recent years, but close only counts in hand grenades and horseshoes, but not horse racing.

There have been 44 horses who won two out of the three Triple Crown races and 21 who won both the Kentucky Derby and Preakness only to fail in the Belmont Stakes with Big Brown's 2008 effort being the most recent.  In fact, seven of the 21 were in the last 14 years, so we are more than due for someone to finally win it. Only eleven horses have won the elusive Triple Crown. The grueling schedule of three races in five weeks at longer distances than most have run previously in their careers is probably the most difficult task any horse will face in his racing career.

Horse Racing, MLB triple crown, kentucky derby, belmont stakes, preakness stakes, carl yastrzemski, big brown, affirmed