Is the sport ready for less Cannonade and more Cannonball?
Reuters/Jim Young
This year's Preakness Stakes—on tap this Saturday afternoon at Pimlico Race Course near downtown Baltimore—isn't just the second leg of horse racing's daunting Triple Crown. For industry insiders especially, pretty much out of the blue, it has become a referendum of sorts on the future of the sport in North America. And what's at stake is far more important than which particular beautifully-bred three-year-old colt or gelding wins the 136th running of the great race.
The issue is borne of simple economics. Horse racing in the United States has failed to attract nearly enough new fans and bettors to replace the old fans and bettors who have died or moved on to other interests since the sport's heyday last century. This is true in the Standardbred racing game, of which I am a part, and to a lesser extent in the bigger and better known Thoroughbred game. Over the past few decades, empty tracks have closed, attendance at existing ones has waned, and handles are down. Like the great Yogi Berra once said: "If the fans don't come to the ball park, you can't stop them."
In Maryland, where the Preakness will be run, the problem is particularly acute and telling. Fabled Pimlico itself is on life support—it had to take a state handout just to stay open this year—and the state's harness racing track, Rosecroft Raceway, didn't even make it that far. Maybe revenues from slots and other gaming will help—but they aren't there yet. So track officials and racing operators decided to do something drastic: they signed off on a lowest-common-denominator marketing plan (think sophomoric beer commercials during football games) designed to bring young adults out to the track for the big show.

Pimlico Race Course
The result was so-called "party manimal" mascot named Kegasus, a half-man, half-horse creation designed to bridge the gulf between people who like to drink beer outdoors until they barf and people who enjoy a day at the races. Kegasus looks like Will Ferrell's character in a skit on SNL about a horse racing mascot—I'll give you this a moment to contemplate that—and when it was first unveiled to the world in March horse racing traditionalists literally gasped in horror at the affrontery of such a low-brow symbol for such a high-falutin' race. A local communications professor immediately labeled it "awful," "depressing," and "sad"—before predicting that the gimmick would work.