The Bright Side
Jeremy Plonk points out that, for a game supposedly in decline, there’s a lot of horse racing on newsstands, TV, and the big screen:
Horse racing has done pretty well in the mainstream for a sport on life support, if you ask me. What other sporting venture can claim box office titles like “Seabiscuit,” “Dreamer,” “Racing Stripes,” “First Saturday in May” and “Secretariat” since just 2003? These films came long after the glory years when horse racing, college football and boxing owned the mainstream sporting consciousness.
And Plonk’s inventory is hardly exhaustive. He leaves off the late night appearances of jockeys Joe Talamo and Calvin Borel, the Vogue appearances of Rachel Alexandra and rider Chantal Sutherland, the recent W photo shoot of Zenyatta, the Sports Illustrated cover featuring Mine That Bird …
With all the consciousness in the culture at large, maybe the racing audience numbers cited by NTRA consultant SocialSphere aren’t so “Potemkin” after all.
4 Comments