A Dying Breed

On the day of the 137th Kentucky Derby, the Daytona 500 of horse racing, 20 horses line up into their respective posts in order to race for the roses. The Derby is the first race in the sport's prestigious triple crown; a feat that only 11 horses have ever managed to achieve. The Kentucky Derby has been called the most exciting 2 minutes in sports. The hours of anticipation and analysis before and after the race truly reflect the tradition of the event. However, the spectacle that is the Kentucky Derby casts an illusion that the sport of horse racing can capture the attention of the American people once again. However...

Horse Racing is a dead sport.

Well, maybe not dead. 16.3 million people tuned into NBC to watch Mine That Bird win the race. A more accurate analogy is that horse racing is in a coma with severe internal bleeding and a .02 percent chance of ever waking up.

Although the Kentucky Derby does well, the rest of the sport suffers because Horse Racing is not a sport that can transition from one generation to the next.

There is a 2 week gap in between the Derby and the next race of the triple crown: the Preakness Stakes. And in today's instant gratification world, most people would tend to forget who won the Derby. They would rather waste their time watching what Snooki of the Jersey Shore wore to some event that she got invited to.

Sad thing is, I will likely get more readers for this story because I have a picture of Snooki.

But back to horse racing.

Sports today such as Baseball, Basketball, Football and Hockey have games on a nightly basis and 24 hour analysis. Horse racing gets media attention for the Derby and a certain amount for the Preakness because the triple crown could still happen. But if the Derby horse does not win the Preakness than the average viewer will tune out. In 2009 the T.V. ratings in the final leg of the triple crown, the Belmont Stakes, was 4.3. That is less than one forth of the T.V. audience for an average NFL game (17.2 in 2009).

Horse Racing also suffers because there is no conclusive way for the average fan to tell which horse is the best. Although there is a great deal of parody in horse racing, there are few consistent winners. Horse Racing's "championship", the Breeders Cup carries about as much weight as the BCS championship. Those two events are similar because there is a winner, but at the end of the day, still no real way to tell who is the best. If a horse were to win the triple crown, then that horse would be considered the best.

That being said, it also does not help the sport that the last time a horse won a triple crown was in the year 1978. And the last time that a horse won both the Derby and the Preakness was Barbaro in 2006.

Also, the culture of the horse racing audience is simply a shadow of it's former self.

Yes the sun dresses, silly hats, and casual suits still can be seen across the camera; but the soul of the audience is no longer there. It used to be that the Derby was a spectacle, where people would watch the race for the horses. Today, the clothes are simply for the cameras. If they could, I bet a great deal of the Derby audience would go in shorts and t shirts if the race were not televised. Nobody would know the difference. I am no fashion analyst, but the clothes of the Kentucky Derby remind me of the Queen of England. For they both used to mean something to people, but now both are just figureheads.

So go ahead horse racing, enjoy your weekend of media coverage and fans paying attention to you. It is the only national attention that you are likely to get all year long.