Horse Racing

Here's a fun book. "Upon Further Review" is about what ifs of sports. Several different sports writers took different chapters. I didn't read the whole thing. Some of the chapters were just not that interesting to me.

One chapter that I didn't think would be interesting, but was, was about horse racing. "What if Horse Racing still the National Pastime?" First of all, What? Was there ever a time horse racing the national pastime? They claim there was. In fact, in the 19th and first part of the 20th century horse racing was big. What changed? A couple things.

1.) New York instituted a lottery. The fun of going to the track and betting on horses took a big hit with that.

2.) Horse racing didn't translate as well into the television era. For one thing, it lasts a couple minutes. You can't really make a televised program out of that. Also, it was just hard to show it on camera. When the horses were on the far side of the track, they looked really tiny on camera. Now they have the technology to do the close ups. In the fifties, they didn't. Also, in black and white, the horses kind of blended in to the ivy or whatever plants they have at race tracks. Not good viewing.

I never saw a Kentucky Derby, but almost as good is there are certain days when you can go to Churchill Downs and watch a full day of racing. Every half an hour a new race. It cost like $5 to attend. It was just me and a bunch of people that probably should be signed up for gamblers anonymous. As long as your not an addict, its a great game. Horse racing really is fun in person. I can see it being the national pastime.