A new race series starts in 2027.
There are some Thoroughbred Horse Racing fans in Maryland who are upset that Churchill Downs and the New York Racing Association are trying to revive interest in horse racing by creating an event called the Thoroughbred Championship Series. It is a six-race competition debuting in 2027. Maryland state racing officials were not invited to be part of the races. The state of Maryland owns the rights to the Preakness at Pimlico. The new event will consist of a six-race, five-month Thoroughbred Championship Series to be run at Churchill Downs in Kentucky, Belmont Park and the Saratoga Race Course in New York. Three-year-old thoroughbreds that compete in the series will get points across the season, with a $5 million prize pool for the series, in addition to individual race purses. Here is a question. Will this new series devalue the Triple Crown series of racing at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky at Pimlico in Baltimore and the Belmont Stakes in Elmont, New York? A better question is will the series create new fans for a sport that has been in severe decline for near 70 years.
The new series has TV partners, FOX and NBC, which will help with its promotion but the days of Seabiscuit and other Thoroughbred horses as subjects of movies are long gone. Racetracks are closing. Aqueduct Racetrack in New York City has run its final race. The Hawthorne Racetrack in suburban Chicago shut down in July but it may return in 2027. Laurel Park in Maryland is shutting its doors to racing at the end of the year. Horse racing in New Zealand is in a major decline. In the 1950s, horse racing and boxing were the number two and three sports in popularity in America with baseball at the top. Even with gambling, horse racing today is barely a blip on the radar screen.
Evan Weiner’s books are available at iTunes – https://books.apple.com/us/author/evan-weiner/id595575191
Evan can be reached at evan_weiner@hotmail.com
