False hope

Release of Seabiscuit won't help racing's popularity

I haven't seen Seabiscuit yet. I will soon enough. As a horse racing journalist, and fan, I look forward to measuring the movie against my own expectations and against the standard of Laura Hillenbrand's book, which I devoured in three sittings. (I liked it very much, though not for the reasons many reviewers have identified. I didn't find it to be a history of the Great Depression viewed through the prism of sport; I found it to be a terrific sports book, with compelling action and interesting players. The history, I thought, was a backdrop and nothing more. And as a journalist, I greatly admired the sheer volume of information Hillenbrand gathered and organized for the book).

But I digress. I'm principally interested in seeing Seabiscuit because it's supposed to be a decent movie (reviews have mostly been good, not great) and like many, many people, I enjoy decent movies. There's something more at work here, however. Within the racing business, the subtext of Seabiscuit's release has been the potential for providing a boost to the sport. It has been widely suggested that people will watch the movie and then flock to the racetrack.

Maybe they will if Tobey Maguire is riding eight races on the card and William H. Macy is calling them.

The buzz about Seabiscuit started last spring when writer-director Gary Ross was part of a six-person team that bought a 10 percent share in promising 3-year-old Atswhatimtalknbout. The story line was inescapable: The Seabiscuit movie people have a horse of their own. Such synergy! Atswhatimtalknbout has turned out to be a decent horse, but certainly not good enough to grab the public's attention and live as the 'Biscuit of the present. That title was given to Funny Cide, the Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner with some small-town owners, a cranky trainer and a jockey making a comeback. During the week leading into the Belmont Stakes, when Funny Cide was gunning for the Triple Crown, it was hard not find a story written or telecast that didn't throw in Seabiscuit's name alongside Funny Cide's. Then Empire Maker won the Belmont and that was that.

Until the movie premiered. Synergy talk began again. There's little mention of Funny Cide this time, although he resumes racing Sunday in the Haskell at Monmouth Park in New Jersey. Yet there remains an expectation that the movie will help revive the sport.

This theory feels like a stretch to me. First consider where racing sits on the sporting landscape: behind the NFL, Major League Baseball, the NBA, college football and basketball and golf. It is fighting with Olympic sports (in non-Olympic competitions), extreme sports, boxing and tennis for what remains of the sporting audience. And that's just for big events, like the Triple Crown races. NBC can attract a large number of viewers for the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and Belmont Stakes (provided a Triple Crown is on the line), but after that, racing returns to cable and the audience shrinks accordingly.

I'm not sure how Seabiscuit is supposed to change this. I think that most people who attend a day of top-notch horse racing will find it compelling. The poetry of half-ton animals running their eyeballs out, the athleticism of the jockeys on their backs. But will the spectators come back? And will they gamble and lose? One day at the races is a wonderful novelty for a casual fan. Two days is fun. Three days is a second job.

You can sell an audience on the excitement of racing by pitching the Derby, the Breeders Cup. But how do you put fannies in the seats at Aqueduct in January? And make no mistake, by the current marketing standards, this is the measure of Seabiscuit's influence. Last April I sat on the track apron at Santa Anita on a beautiful Wednesday afternoon. The track, a magnificent piece of architecture that sits on countless valuable acres in the shadow of the San Gabriel Mountains, was hauntingly empty. The grandstand is the size of a cruise ship and you could have fired a shotgun into it and not hurt anybody. Most tracks are similarly deserted on most days.

There are exceptions. Churchill Downs is packed for the Kentucky Oaks and the Derby. Belmont was jammed for this year's Funny Cide/Empire Maker showdown. And Saratoga, in upstate New York and Del Mar, on the Pacific Ocean north of San Diego, continue to defy logic by operating at or near capacity for most of a six-week summer meet. Every year. They are treasures worth visiting.

Yet I'm not sure how much better racing can do. Can it find another Saratoga or another Del Mar? These are places that combine destination vacationing with horse racing. Can the sport entice large crowds to the track on workdays when fans have to sit through nine races, each lasting a minute or two, but separated by an hour of silence or simulcasting and video poker?

A year ago when War Emblem was chasing his Triple Crown, writers kept prodding racing insiders to declare that racing needs a Triple Crown winner to revive itself. Trainer D. Wayne Lukas wouldn't take the bait. "There will be a little bump in popularity and then it will go right back to where it was," he said.

I think I agree with him. Racing will be popular at Saratoga, at Del Mar and at Churchill Downs for a week in May. A big horse will attract momentary attention. But there will be no rebirth. The '30s were a long time ago. Racing has a modest place in the sporting world and that's better than no place at all. One movie will not make it a bigger place.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Tim Layden weighs in with a Viewpoint every Friday on SI.com. Click here to send him a comment.

 

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