Field Report: Isa Bell Romps in Philracom-PCSO Triple Crown Leg 1 — A 5-Year Comeback After COVID and the Closure of Two Old Tracks

Bell Racing’s unbeaten filly Isa Bell took the Philracom-PCSO Triple Crown Leg 1 (1,650m) by 6.5 lengths in 1:41.68, lowering the 3-year-old track record by 1.2 seconds.
What is more interesting than the win itself is the structure behind it: after Heneral Kalentong’s 2020 sweep, COVID and the consecutive closures of the old Santa Ana and San Lazaro tracks made the three-venue Triple Crown system itself impossible to run, and the November 2025 opening of the new Padre Garcia Racetrack finally restarted the series.
Lined up against the U.S. and Japanese classic routes on distance, history, and prize money, the Philippine Triple Crown is closer to a working compressed version of the international template than a “miniature copy” — and what is being tested this season is not only the horses but the rebuilt operating infrastructure itself.

Race Notes

Per the Philippine Jockey Club’s official news (May 25, 2026):

• Leg 1 was run Sunday, May 25, at the new Padre Garcia Racetrack over 1,650m. Bell Racing’s Isa Bell (Jonathan Hernandez up) won by 6.5 lengths.
• The winning time of 1:41.68 is a new track record for 3-year-olds at 1,650m, lowering the previous mark (1:42.80, set in November 2025 by stablemate Midnight Bell) by 1.2 seconds.
• The colt Diamante (by Juggling Act AUS) contested the early pace, but Isa Bell pulled clear in the straight. Second: Bermuda Triangle (USA-bred). Third: Diamante.
• Isa Bell is now 4-for-4 with a cumulative winning margin of 23 lengths. By Union Bell (2019 Philippine Stakes Races Horse of the Year), out of Dr. Fager’s Gal (New York-bred, by Wild Desert out of a Quiet American mare; raced for Jerry Hollendorfer in 2014–2017 and won the 2015 Beverly J. Lewis Stakes (Listed, Los Alamitos)). Breeder and owner Bell Racing’s Elmer De Leon; trainer Donato Sordan.
• Leg 2 is June 14 at Malvar over 1,800m; the final is July 19 at Padre Garcia over 2,000m.
• On the same card, Bell Racing’s Rapido (by He’s Had Enough USA) also took the Philracom-PCSO Locally Bred Stakes Leg 1 (1,650m).

The Philracom-PCSO Triple Crown Format

The Philippine Triple Crown was first run in 1978, with Fair and Square the inaugural winner in 1981. From then through Heneral Kalentong in 2020, only 12 horses completed the sweep (Wikipedia / Tempo, “A 13th Triple Crown winner?” May 15, 2026). Past winners include local greats such as Skywalker (1983), Strong Material (1996), Silver Story (2001), Hagdang Bato (2012), and Sepfourteen (2017).

This season’s setup:

The 2025 edition of Leg 1 carried a winner’s purse of PHP 2,100,000 (RMN Networks). It is a 3-year-old graded series run jointly by Philracom (the racing authority) and PCSO (the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office).

How It Stacks Up Against the U.S. and Japan

Lined up on distance, history, and prize money, the Philippine Triple Crown looks like a compressed version of the international template.

• Distance template: Japan stretches progressively (2,000–2,400–3,000m) and favors stamina. The U.S. mix (about 2,000–1,900–2,400m) is uneven. The Philippines compresses to 1,650–1,800–2,000m, which favors speed types and tests “all-round” ability across several distances rather than crowning a pure stayer (Wikipedia: Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing (Japan)).
• History and winners: Japan has produced 8 winners over 95 years; the U.S. 13 over 150 years; the Philippines 12 over 48 years. The headline “completion rate” for the Philippines looks high, but field sizes are thinner and the series has had regulatory shifts in the past, which should be discounted.
• Shared structure: All three are built on the same backbone — a single cohort contesting multiple legs over varied distances and venues. The Philippines also rotates venues (Leg 1 and Final at Padre Garcia, Leg 2 at Malvar), which aligns with the international convention.

If “miniature copy” sounds dismissive, a fairer rephrasing: the Philippine Triple Crown is the international template compressed to current supply scale.

Why “5 Years” Is the Story — It Wasn’t a Horses Problem, It Was an Infrastructure Problem

No one has swept the Triple Crown since Heneral Kalentong in 2020. The reason Isa Bell’s Leg 1 win matters is not just that she would be the 13th sweep winner but that she would be the first Triple Crown winner to run Leg 3 at the new Padre Garcia Racetrack.

The reason the gap is 5 years has little to do with horses or luck. The three-venue Triple Crown architecture itself collapsed under COVID and the consecutive closures of the two old tracks.

The timeline makes this clear:

Heneral Kalentong ran Leg 1 at San Lazaro in October 2020, Leg 2 at Santa Ana in November, and Leg 3 at MetroTurf in late November — a roughly five-week sweep across the three main tracks of the era, making him the 12th Triple Crown winner (BusinessMirror, Oct 5, 2020).
But immediately after, Santa Ana Park closed on October 22, 2020 at the end of its 85-year franchise, and San Lazaro Leisure Park closed in August 2022 after 155 years, with Manila Jockey Club pivoting to property development (Manila Jockey Club / SLLP official). From Heneral Kalentong’s sweep onward, the three-venue architecture could not be assembled physically.

Layered on top: COVID. Philippine racing was suspended for an extended period from spring 2020 and only resumed under IATF approval on May 13, 2021 (Inquirer Business, “MMTCI-Philracom revs up horseracing’s comeback”). Even after the resumption, MetroTurf (Malvar) functioned as a de facto single venue, leaving the calendar, transport, and operational logistics for a three-venue series impossible to rebuild.

So the five-year gap breaks down like this:

• 2020: Heneral Kalentong sweeps under the three-venue setup — the last year it worked
• 2021–2022: COVID return + cascading old-venue closures. The “three-venue” premise of the Triple Crown collapses
• 2022 to October 2025: Effectively a MetroTurf-only era. No physical setup capable of hosting a three-venue Triple Crown
• November 2025: Padre Garcia Racetrack opens. Together with MetroTurf, a multi-venue setup is restored
• 2026 (this season): The first Triple Crown in 5 years restarts under the restored two-venue setup

The Triple Crown was not absent because horses capable of sweeping didn’t show up. It was absent because the stage the series requires had disappeared. This season’s restart is testing both the horses and the rebuilt infrastructure.

Even with the stage back, three conditions are needed for a sweep:

Isa Bell’s 4-for-4 record and the 1.2-second record cut suggest she meets the first condition on distance and soundness, but the track change and stretching distances of the remaining two legs are the real tests.

Bell Racing — A Stable Concentrating Its Sire Lines

Worth holding in mind alongside Isa Bell is what Bell Racing itself has built.

The principal, Elmer Thomas De Leon, owns Bell Construction and is the father of professional volleyball player Bea De Leon. Stable horses are often named after family: Bea Bell (2023 Philracom 2YO Maiden Stakes winner) takes the daughter’s name; Isa Bell’s sire Union Bell went 6-for-6 with 5 graded wins and was named 2019 Philippine Stakes Races Horse of the Year (Manila Standard, “Union Bell, Bell Racing Stable lead Philracom awardees”).

The current season has not let up:

The pattern of interest is the sire-line concentration: Midnight Bell, Bea Bell, and Rapido are all by He’s Had Enough (USA), by the top North American sire Tapit, a 2013 Kentucky Derby trail runner (Tapit Wikipedia) who stood in Florida before being moved to the Philippines. Bell Racing has put concentrated investment into that line. Isa Bell sits in the same stable lineage even with a different sire — the vertical integration of breeder, owner, and trainer is the same throughline.

The pattern resembles a vertically integrated operation that maintains dominance across multiple generations — the kind of structure seen with Shadai Farm and Northern Farm in Japan. The scale is incomparable, but the strategic backbone is similar, and it is working in the Philippines.

Caveats

A 1-leg win does not make a Triple Crown story complete. A few caveats to close on.

• A Leg 1 win is no guarantee of Legs 2 and 3: In 1978, Native Gift won two legs but lost Leg 3 to Majority Rule. Distance increases and the track change mean many Leg 1 winners over the years have failed to sweep.
• Malvar surface adaptability is a separate question: Leg 2 runs at Malvar, a different track from Padre Garcia with different surface characteristics. Winning through a venue change is what separates true classic types from one-trick speedsters — the same structure as in Japan and the U.S.
• Caution on prize money comparisons: Leg 1’s PHP 2.1M winner’s purse (roughly USD 36,000) is orders of magnitude below the Japanese Satsuki Sho (JPY 200M to the winner) or the Kentucky Derby (over USD 3.3M). But the right yardstick for the Philippine Triple Crown isn’t purse size — it’s the maturity of the structure itself: distances, history, and the three-track operational template are all built on the international model.
• Even if Isa Bell falls short, the record stands: The 1:41.68 new 3yo 1,650m mark becomes a baseline figure for what the new Padre Garcia surface returns for the next generation. Sweep or no sweep, it is one data point that the track responds to the next wave of competitors.

Related

• Field Report: What the Opening of Padre Garcia Means — The new venue where the Triple Crown final will be staged
• Analysis: Why Philippine Jockeys Should Be Read as a Meritocracy — How to read the current Philippine riding ranks, including Jonathan Hernandez
• Analysis: Why the Record-Breaking Bloodstock Imports Are a Supply-Bet, Not a Bubble — Context on the imported sire lines that include He’s Had Enough

Summary

Read on its own, Isa Bell’s Leg 1 win is just one post-race report.
But read inside the frame of the 5-year gap — when COVID and the closure of two old tracks made the three-venue Triple Crown architecture itself impossible to run, until the new Padre Garcia Racetrack restored the multi-venue setup — it becomes a rare opportunity to observe the rebuilding of the Philippine classic route itself.
Distances are shorter and purses smaller than in Japan and the U.S., but the backbone — three venues, a roughly two-month campaign, progressive distances — matches the international template. The Philippine Triple Crown is better read as the same template in working compressed form than as a “scaled-down copy.”
We will keep tracking the June 14 Leg 2 at Malvar and the July 19 final at Padre Garcia, both as a follow on Bell Racing’s vertical operation and as a reading of the rebuilt classic route.

Sources

• Philippine Jockey Club, “Unbeaten Isa Bell takes the 1st leg Triple Crown”
• Philracom Triple Crown — Wikipedia
• Tempo, “A 13th Triple Crown winner?” (May 15, 2026)
• PCSO–Philracom Stages ‘Road to the Triple Crown’ Horse Race — RMN Networks
• Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing (Japan) — Wikipedia
• Tapit — Wikipedia
• Manila Standard, “Union Bell, Bell Racing Stable lead Philracom awardees”
• BusinessMirror, “Heneral Kalentong prevails in Triple Crown series 1st leg” (Oct 5, 2020)
• Inquirer Business, “MMTCI-Philracom revs up horseracing’s comeback”
• Horse racing in the Philippines — Wikipedia
• The Horsemen’s Track — Wikipedia
• Dr. Fager’s Gal — Horse Racing Nation
• Dr. Fager’s Gal — Equibase