As a yearling, he was consigned to the Keeneland July sales by the Taylor Made Agency, where he was bought for $575,000 by Robert and Beverly Lewis.
Despite his modest achievements in 1999, he was identified as a potential contender for the Triple Crown races by his trainer, D. Wayne Lukas.
[6] In the Kentucky Derby, he finished seventeenth in a nineteen-horse field, after which his handlers chose not to run him in the Preakness Stakes.
[7] On a sweltering[5] day at Belmont, Commendable was among the outsiders for the third leg of the Triple Crown, despite the absence of leading three-year-olds Fusaichi Pegasus and Red Bullet.
[13] He was retired to stud duty at Mill Ridge Farm in Lexington, Kentucky, where he remained until January 2005.