Bob Ehalt wrote an interesting piece (linked here) on whether there should be a turf triple crown. Mr. Ehalt points out that with the addition of the Belmont Derby this weekend to the perennially run Secretariat Stakes at Arlington in August, we already have two legs of a potential three race series.

HIs point is very well taken. Racing needs to constantly find ways to generate fan interest.

The great thing about the Derby, Preakness and Belmont is that even casual fans have an interest in those races, in part because for close to a hundred years they have been part of American sports lore, like the World Series or the Superbowl. The Triple Crown races are a tradition. Do you think 150,000 fans show up at Churchill Downs because of the importance and popularity of horseracing? No, it is always a milestone event and a helluva party. And if one horse manages to capture the first two legs, the Belmont even gets a mention on ESPN’s The Sports Reporters, usually four guys who together watch fewer races in a year than I watch in a week.

Any series of races would have to fill a hole. That is exactly what the Breeder’s Cup did. It settled a lot of the arguments about which horse was best in which category. It was also a great made-for-TV event.

Perhaps to racing enthusiasts a turf triple crown makes sense, but to all those people who are horseracing fans two days a year (Kentucky Derby and Breeder’s Cup) what reason would they have to care about it? To a degree this sort of thing regularly pops up. Remember the handicap triple crown in New York – the Metropolitan, the Brooklyn and the Suburban? They still run those races but they are not really linked anymore. Remember the Strub series – the Malibu, the San Fernando and the Strub. Those races don’t attract nearly the depth they used to. How about the Triple Tiara (the old filly triple crown) – the Acorn, the CCA Oaks and the Alabama? There is only one Triple Crown, and they pretty much hold the patent on the three race series.

I’m not decrying the idea. I think this is exactly the sort of thing horseracing fans need to do – suggest ways to give the sport greater exposure. And there is certainly nothing wrong with doing it as soon as a third leg is identified. If the point is, we need to elevate 3 year-old turf racing, as my previous two posts indicate, turf racing overall is second class in America. If it is going to be elevated, breeders need to stop ceding turf breeding to the Europeans, tracks need to build better turf courses, and fans need to be just as excited about turf racing as they are about the well-known dirt races.