It's Kentucky Derby Day! Does Anyone Care?

Time to mix up some Mint Juleps, don a big wide-rimed hat, and weep to Stephen C. Foster's tune, "My Old Kentucky Home." Just like in the good old days...

Not!

American horse racing is on it's last legs. Especially in Maryland where I live and where half our family income is dependent upon horse racing.

The Tax Reform Act of 1986 eliminated tax shelters for owning race horses as an investment. That drove down the demand for horse flesh, which put the two leading thoroughbred horse breeding farms out of business. Today, 23 years later, there are not enough quality horses to run 9 quality races each day at live tracks. So, the race tracks have gone to simulcasting -- the sharing of live races via satellite to many tracks for remote viewing and betting.

That would have worked, except the betting demographic also changed -- for the worse. Handicaping was once a respectable past time where one could fill spare time with a mentally challenging and physically appealing sport with the promise of making money. At times, the payoff was darn good. Before the age of simulcasting, horses tended to run at the same tracks and the handicappers could follow these horses, learning about their trends (liked to run on a fast or dry track vs. good on a wet and muddy track for example), following the success of jockeys on these horses, and even knowing about the trainers and their "track records."

All this has changed. Not only is it nearly impossible to keep track of all the horse statistics for races being held internationally every day, but nobody has spare time to visit the track, to keep abreast of their favorate horses, nor is there an abundance of discressionary income with which to play the game.

And, mostly nobody much cares about horse racing these days. Racing horses was a favorate sport of land owners when this country (and others) were agriculturally centered. We humans had a connection with horses -- either as transportation, work tools, or family pets. We have lost touch with horses, so we don't much care if they run fast and can beat the star horse from the next town over.

So, today is the first big race in the Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Horse racing. Does anyone even realize it's happening? It's kinda sad to say probably not.