HORSE RACING : One Way to Spell a Great Idea: ACRS

When the Pimlico Special is run Saturday, it will be telecast nationally and simulcast to every other operating race track in America. It probably will set a record for total wagering on a race other than a Triple Crown or Breeders’ Cup event. The old mark was set just four weeks ago, when many of these same horses competed in the Oaklawn Handicap.

Until very recently, people in the racing industry moaned constantly that the Triple Crown and the Breeders’ Cup were the only events that could attract national attention from the public and the media. This was a perennial theme at industry conferences, which were forever recommending that the sport promote itself more effectively.

Last year, Barry Weisbord conceived a way to do so. Weisbord, whose company, Matchmaker Inc., promotes races for various tracks, thought he had the answer because he understood the nature of the problem.

“If Charlotte plays Minnesota in basketball,” he said, “you’ll see a story about it in the paper even if you’re in San Francisco. Racing has a lot more fans than the Minnesota Timberwolves, but (the Timberwolves are) part of the NBA, part of a structure. Other sports have schedules, playoffs or, in the case of golf and auto racing, a tour. Racing didn’t have any of those things. We needed to give it some definition.”

Weisbord’s answer to this problem was to create an American Championship Racing Series, a group of races that the industry would define as its main events. And in an industry whose resistance to change is notorious, Weisbord pulled it off. The Pimlico Special will be the fourth of a 10-race program that began in February, will end in September and will offer a $1.5 million bonus to the horses who perform the best through the series.

Weisbord wanted the ACRS to consist of races for older horses on the dirt at distances from 1 1/8 miles to 1 1/4 miles -- preferably existing races with histories and traditions of their own. These conditions would attract the horses who had been the stars of the Triple Crown races of the previous season, but who disappear from public view after the Belmont Stakes.

A few track executives liked the idea immediately; others were indifferent. It was Dennis Swanson, president of ABC Sports, whose enthusiasm turned Weisbord’s idea into reality. Swanson saw that the continuity of the series would enable viewers to recognize the contestants.

Because of Swanson’s assurance that the ACRS races would get TV coverage, Weisbord was able to put together the series and induce two tracks to stage new races: Rockingham Park with the $500,000 New England Classic and Del Mar with the $1 million Pacific Classic.

Weisbord raised the $1.5 million bonus for the series, as well as the money for its promotion, by asking the tracks that host the races to contribute all of their simulcasting revenue from their big event.

This plan generated some understandable resistance -- Pimlico received plenty of money from simulcasting the Special before there was an ACRS -- and Weisbord said, “The nine host tracks are paying for the whole country to market racing. But we’ve gotten this deal off by making the whole pie bigger for everybody. Last year, these races grossed $20 million from their simulcasting; this year we’re projecting $50 million.”

Trainers of the top older horses have responded to the ACRS and given it the continuity that Weisbord and Swanson wanted.

Weisbord’s ultimate objective -- to generate more attention and publicity for the sport -- also is being fulfilled. The Oaklawn Handicap attracted considerable interest and media coverage and the Pimlico Special, which will feature a rematch of last year’s Preakness battle between Unbridled and Summer Squall, will attract even more.

“Last year,” Weisbord said, “the best race of the year might have been the Hollywood Gold Cup, with Sunday Silence against Criminal Type. And nobody saw it. Now, if the sport delivers a good product, people will know about it, see it -- and be able to bet on it.”