Quote:
Originally Posted by DerbyJackpot
How come it has become so hard to get excited about the Preakness and Triple Crown?
Like let me compare during Smarty Jones era. People were having cookouts, bbqs, etc and getting hyped up for later that day when Smarty Jones ran. The atmosphere was electric when he won and excitement awaited for the Belmont.
Now you have Justify. Nobody cares, nobody is talking about it. Hell majority of people are rooting against Justify just for the notion, "I hate seeing rich people win"
I understand that 100% of your top horses are owned by rich people and/or groups. It just cycles through social media of the types of people are nowdays. You didn't have social media during Smarty Jones era, and were rooting for the horse and had no care about who the owner was.
I know one of you guys will bring up Preakness had the largest attendance last year. But its deflated for many reasons...
1.) The track paid millions in dollars to have Top Artist come in for the concerts. 40 to 50% of the crowd came for this
2.) Beer... I think its what $20 or $30 to drink all you want?
If there was no concerts you'd have seen one of the lowest attendance Preakness races. Just look at the tv ratings of last years Preakness.
To end this... Its hard to root for a horse with a billionaire owner who is a royal piece of shit at the end of the day. Same goes for American Pharoah.
When Secretariat ran you had this vision that the owner was this sweet charm lady and it was an amazing story.. Yes I know she was rich, but it wasn't talked about like today's rich owners are.
Today's Triple Crown races have lost the closeness you felt to the people around the horse. You see it as corporate enterprises essentially.
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I doubt any casual derby/TC race watcher has any idea who owns Justify or who owned American Pharoah etc.
Horses with blue-collar or underdog connections/chances tend to be the ones that garner a lot of fans because their backstories are marketed, and Americans like our MTBs and Cinderella stories in all areas, which is why those backstories are marketed. It's emotionally uplifting for little guys to root for little guys.
Rooting for the number one seed with all the advantages doesn't have that emotional pay off, it is straight up winning team bandwaggoning, which is always a shallower source of affection. It's about relateability. Most people don't hate rich people per se, they hate certain categories of rich people.
It would probably have been better for the sport had Chrome won the TC because of his giagantic, casual fan base, who still follow him, than it was for American Pharoah, who for most Americans was just an interesting blip, not something they were emotionally invested in. The country would have gone nuts if MTB had won it (that little engine that could had a great TC considering).
This year no one cares because it isn't being sold to them as anything but American Pharoah Redux; it's boring them, because it is boring. Plus, the draw of the TC was the same as when a gambler keeps winning and draws a crowd, but once the gambler loses, the spell is broken. Once the TC was won, the "oohh aahhh" factor disappeared.
The weather isn't helping either. Most people don't like watching horses run around in rain, fog, and mud.
