Thanks to Marion Marauder’s win in Sunday’s Kentucky Futurity at Red Mile, Paula Wellwood is the first female trainer to win a Triple Crown. Driver Scotty Zeron, 27, is the youngest to win one — and the only driver under 30 to win a Triple Crown race with both a trotter and a pacer (he won the Jug in 2012 with Michaels Power at the age of 23).

Prior to Marion Marauder’s victory, it had been 10 years since the last Triple Crown (Glidemaster) and two more years to the one before that (Windsongs Legacy), who ended a 32-year Trotting Triple Crown drought that stretched back to 1972 when Super Bowl won it.

Slim margin

Marion Marauder’s Nose-Head-Head victories in the Triple Crown events is the closest ever combined margin for any Triple Crown winner.

The last nose winner of the Hambletonian who then went on to win the Triple Crown was Scott Frost in 1955 — the very first Triple Crown champ.

Trotting Triple Crown first

Marion Marauder is the first Trotting Triple Crown winner ever to be sired by a Horse Of The Year (Muscle Hill — 2009).

On the pacing side, the 1971 and 1972 Horse of the Year Albatross sired the 1980 Triple Crown winner Niatross.

Oh, Canada

Joe O’Brien won the Triple Crown in 1955 with Scott Frost. O’Brien was Canadian just like Marion Marauder’s connections Scott Zeron, Paula Wellwood and Mike Keeling. The only trainers in the last four decades to win a Triple Crown and not be born in Canada were Ivan Sugg (2003 with No Pan Intended) and Trond Smedshammer (2004 with Windsongs Legacy).

The book on Marion Marauder

• The ninth trotter to win the Triple Crown (10 pacers have done so)
• Scott Zeron is the eighth different driver to win the Trotting Triple Crown
• Paula Wellwood is the eighth different trainer to win the Trotting Triple Crown (Stanley Dancer doubled up with Nevele Pride 1968 and Super Bowl 1972) and the first female trainer to win the Triple Crown
• Marion Marauder — at 11-for-26 lifetime — is the only Trotting Triple Crown winner with a lifetime slate of less than 50 per cent.
• Zeron, later this month, will try and win his first Breeders Crown after winning his first Triple Crown.

Double Crowning?

No Trotting Triple Crown winner has ever contested the Breeders Crown after winning the Triple Crown. In 2004, Windsongs Legacy passed on the Breeders Crown the following month and the horse he defeated by 33 lengths in the Kentucky Futurity final — Yankee Slide — wound up winning it. In 2006, Glidemaster had already competed in the Breeders Crown (finishing second to Majestic Son) before he won the Yonkers Trot In November.

Four horsemen

The four riders/jockeys over $290 million in career earnings have a combined zero Triple Crowns — John Velazquez, John Campbell, Pat Day and Jerry Bailey

Fun note on Glidemaster

Eight was enough for the next most recent Trotting Triple Crown winner Glidemaster.
His Hambletonian victory came in the eighth race on Hambletonian Day in 2006 from post position eight and it had been eight years since John Campbell’s previous Hambletonian winner.
Glidemaster ended the year with eight wins (in 15 starts) and his hip number as a yearling was 88.