The sport isn’t drawing too much interest anymore.
There won’t be a Triple Crown winner in Thoroughbred Horse Racing’s annual three race series, the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont. There will also be a change in the Triple Crown circuit in 2027. This year’s Preakness was the last hurrah for the Laurel Park track in Laurel, Maryland. That racetrack will be decommissioned and will become a horse training facility. The Preakness will return to Baltimore’s Pimlico Race Course for the 152nd running in 2027. The 2026 Belmont, the third race in the Triple Crown, will be run in Saratoga, New York more than 150 miles away from the Belmont Park racetrack in Elmont, New York. The Belmont Park facility grounds are being renovated with the old big grandstand razed and replaced with a much, much smaller seating area. The Belmont will return to Elmont in 2027.
Even with the two track renovations, sinking money into the facilities probably won’t revive an industry that has been in a massive decline for decades. There are some races that still attract attention, the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont along with the Breeders’ Cup but it is no longer 1950 when Baseball, Boxing and Horse Racing dominated the American sports landscape. Horse racing had a big following but that quickly faded after the 1950s as states began lotteries and betting was made easy. In the 1960s, there was a limited but growing form of legalized betting around, with state lotteries, off track betting and the availability of all forms of gambling in stores along with casinos sprouting up around the country gamblers’ have choices. A portion of the horse racing industry has been saved by casino gambling at tracks. That is not going to change anytime soon. Belmont will not have a casino when it reopens.
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Evan can be reached at evan_weiner@hotmail.com
