"As the nineties began, American Thoroughbred racing was facing numerous crises. Racehorse owners could not afford to run for the small purses being offered. Tracks were presenting far too many racing dates in competition with one another. A lack of uniform rules from state to state made regulation an elusive goal. Amid these grave issues, those who cared deeply about racing and horses were calling for the creation of a new body, or perhaps a national czar, to supervise the teetering sport.
Whoever writes the introduction to The Jockey Club's book in the year 2094, celebrating its first two centuries, is welcome to recycle the preceding paragraph. Every word of it applies as much to the 1890s as it does to the 1990s, and it is 3-to-5 on the morning line that it will be just as valid in the good old 2090s as well.
Thoroughbred racing will outlive all of us, most of its fellow sports, and perhaps even some of these problems. It is bigger and stronger than all of them. Distilled to its essence, racing is at every level about the persuit of quality and a striving for excellence. The notion of improving the breed permeates every aspect of the sport. We run races to entertain, but also to inform, to find the horses who will produce a better horse a generation from now.
By definition, then, Thoroughbred racing is always moving forward on a line between here and perfection. Occasionally we get a glimpse of the goal, Secretariat or Personal Ensign, and we wait and hunger for another.
All games need rules, and racing works best when those who care about its quality and fairness devise its structure. The chaos of the sport in the 1890s led men who cherished racing to form The Jockey Club in 1894. It has prospered its first century amid numerous changes of activity but no wavering of purpose. While many functions of supervising and operating racing have been subsumed by government, which protects its own and the public's interest in varying degrees, The Jockey Club has adapted to the changing world around a sport that in essence changes little.
Maintaining the integrity of the Thoroughbred breed by registering the foals born every year remains the heart of the operation, while newer activites such as collecting and distributing racing and breeding information will benefit racing's loyal fans, who bankroll the sport but whose interests too often run last. Other worthy endeavors include continuing research into the ailments that afflict the ever-fragile Thoroughbred, and the training and accredation of racing officials.
While the problems of racing may be as old as the game itself, the years ahead may legitimately be the most trying. Over the last century, the horse has vanished from all other avenues of American life, weakening a bond that was at the core of the sport's appeal. More ominously, after decades of enjoying a monopoly of legalized gambling in most of the country, racing now is competing with inferior but flashier wagers, and it seems only a matter of time before casinos and ballgame bookmakers are franchised throughout the land.
To survive, racing will have to adapt its product to changing public tastes without compromising the integrity of its greatness, The public's betting money is the lifeblood of the industry, and racing will have to compete for that money far more effectively than it has in these early years of competition. Yet the sport must never lose the integrity and mission of quality that have sustained it, lest those who are attracted to it find it a hollow persuit.
There are always signs that racing is responding to these challenges, though each response has its price.
The Breeders' Cup has given national focus to the racing calendar and given the sport a new window of exposure at season's end, but has diminished the importance of other races, such as The Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont Park.
Offtrack betting is becoming more widely available, and while it will lead to higher overall wagering levels, track attendance will continue to decline.
Simulcast races among tracks has captured the public fancy and brought better racing to many patrons, but a need for less live racing will eventually shutter some smaller tracks and reduce the demand for horses from the breeding industry.
All these developments can be absorbed. They are nothing next to the simple greatness of racing: My horse is faster than your horse, and I'll prove it down at the meadow. There will always be Thoroughbreds to carry the blood of these age-old challenges, and people who love them watching from the stands."
-The introduction to The Jockey Club's Illustrated History of Thoroughbred Racing in America, written in 1994 by Steven Crist
