Triple Crown begins in Palermo with seven colts and eight fillies

The next generation of Argentine racehorses gets its chance at history on Saturday, when Palermo opens the Triple Crown with two celebrated races known as the Pollas. Eight fillies and seven colts will contest the first prize, each over 1,600 meters on dirt, continuing a format that has remained unchanged since 1895.

The program starts at 1:30 p.m. and includes 14 other races, among them the Group 1 General San Martín for older, long-distance horses. But attention centers on the 15 three-year-olds whose teams believe they are ready to compete for the first jewel of the series.

The colts carry the larger historical expectation. No horse has linked the three major prizes for three decades. The last was Refinado Tom, who won the Polla in 1996, followed by the Jockey Club on the San Isidro turf and the Nacional back at Palermo. The 2023 generation now begins a route that can be attempted only once, at age three.

Fletcher is the favorite for the Polla de Potrillos after winning last month’s preparatory classic on the same track and over the same distance. He has won his last three races on dirt. That run was interrupted only by a visit to the turf, where he struggled on a soft surface after rain. He has also won on Palermo’s heavy track, as he did when breaking his maiden.

Trainer Roberto Pellegatta has won the race several times, while jockey William Pereyra returns to Fletcher after missing the two previous starts because of other commitments. For the Chos Malal stable, the race revives hopes associated with Belleza de Arteaga and Cima de Areco, two mares who later went to the United States after their Argentine campaigns. The field represents only a small fraction of the horses eligible to enter: seven colts were selected from 3,279 male foals born in Argentina between the second half of 2023 and the first half of 2024, and all will be ridden by Argentine jockeys.