NEW YORK (CNN/Money) -
Horse racing fans have been eagerly awaiting a Triple Crown winner for decades, believing it would revive general interest in the sport.
This year, when media phenomenon Smarty Jones was the favorite to become the first Triple Crown winner since 1978, those involved with the sport hoped they finally had the champ they needed to put their long-short sport in the winner's circle.
"It's put horse racing back on the map," said David Michaels, the producer responsible for horse racing coverage at NBC Sports. "When regular old sports fans are talking about horse racing, something extraordinary is happening."
Instead, Saturday Smarty Jones again came up short, becoming the sixth horse in the last eight years to win the first two Triple Crown races and lose the Belmont.
If there's any consolation for race fans to Smarty Jones' loss, it's that even if Smarty had won Saturday, his economic impact on the sport wouldn't have been as great as they had hoped. It'll take far more than even a popular Triple Crown winner to make horse racing a winning sport once again.
A champion horse's time on the track -- and in the consciousness of fans -- is extremely limited. The risks of injury and the staggering fees available to owners who put horses out to stud make long racing careers for a champion as rare as a 300-pound jockey.
In other sports, a star builds fan interests over many years. Tiger Woods, for example, is likely to be playing to the galleries well into the middle of this century. Racing will be incredibly lucky if Smarty Jones is still on the track in the latter half of this decade.
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| Even a Triple Crown win by Smarty Jones wouldn't have been enough to lift horse racing back to major sport status. |
Would a Triple Crown winner "result in greater attendance and wagering levels next year or the year after he retires?" asks Jeffrey Thomilson, a Louisville stock analyst with Hilliard Lyons who follows Churchill Downs Inc. (CHDN: Research, Estimates), the sports' largest racetrack operator. "It couldn't hurt. But it's hard to say it'll result in x- percent increase."
Thomilson thought a Smarty Jones win would have created a certain number of new fans, and he thought horse racing stocks would have gotten a short-term bump. But the analyst, who has a neutral rating on Churchill's stock, wasn't planning to raise either his investment outlook or his earnings forecast for the company if Smarty had won.
Horse racing fans are hoping even without a Triple Crown win Smarty has the potential to attract new fans with the common-man's horse reputation. But last year's Triple Crown contender Funny Cide also had that reputation. After he lost the Belmont, much of the media attention around him quickly faded away.
The problem for horse racing is that even if Smarty attracts a new, larger sea of casual fans, it won't dramatically change the sport's economics. Most of racing's revenue comes from the $3.5 billion in wagers left over after payouts and prize money, with the majority from hard-core fans. Even a million new fans going to the $2 window a few times a year won't radically change the bottom line.
Big interest, modest gains
Bob Flynn, executive director of the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association, which represents horse owners, was excited when I spoke to him Friday because there was more media than fans at Belmont in anticipation of Saturday's race.
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Flynn is one of those who believe the overwhelming attention to Smarty Jones will create fans for years to come, even without a Triple Crown win. But he's more modest in his predictions for the size of that impact even if there had been a Triple Crown win.
"It might only be a 5 or 10 percent increase," said Flynn. "But it's a positive in the long run."
In the 1930s and '40s, horse racing was considered one of the nation's three major sports, along with boxing and baseball. Part of its attraction was that it was the only legal form of gambling for most Americans at that time.
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But racing chose to limit its television exposure in the 1960s, even as TV coverage of other sports exploded, putting it at a competitive disadvantage. The sport was also hurt by the growth of legalized gaming. These days, it's tough to buy a gallon of milk without being offered a lottery ticket, or to live more than a few hours from a casino.
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 If Smarty Jones wins at the Belmont Stakes he will be a triple crown winner. CNN's Josie Burke reports on the upcoming race.
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From a competitive standpoint the sport may have had its greatest moment in the 1970s, with Secretariat, Seattle Slew and Affirmed all winning the Triple Crown. But even those three great champions weren't enough to halt the sport's decline.
"Right after that is when racing went on the slide actually," said Tom LaMarra, news editor of The Blood-Horse, an industry trade publication. "It was affected by a lot of changes in society."
I'm not suggesting the sport it doomed. It is a far more global sport than most U.S. sports considered "major." Revenue, which represents amount wagered less prize money, has stopped its decline and has been climbing since 1998. But it's still dwarfed by other major forms of gaming, including casinos, riverboats and lotteries, let alone fast-growing Internet gaming.
I grew up with a grandmother who loved horse racing almost as much as I loved her, and I would be as thrilled as any race fan to see the sport race back to its former glory.
But I think those who believe Smarty Jones or even the next Triple Crown winner will be able to carry horse racing back to prominence are betting with their hearts more than their heads.
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