COMMENTARY : Some Don’t Get the Big Picture

The first American Championship Racing Series came to a perfect climax here last year. Farma Way and Festin, two rugged competitors, had crisscrossed the country to run against each other, and they met for the final time in the Pacific Classic at Del Mar, where Farma Way earned a $750,000 bonus for best overall performance in the ACRS.

The 10-race series had done just what its creator, Barry Weisbord, had hoped it would. It gave a made-for-television continuity and dramatic structure to major stakes races for older horses. Widespread simulcasting created intense interest in these races among bettors who otherwise might never have seen them. The ACRS seemed to have established itself instantly as an institution in U.S. racing.

But its second series, which ends Sunday with the running of the $1-million Pacific Classic, demonstrates some of the problems inherent in a sport whose fragile stars can’t show up for all the big events. Best Pal was America’s best racehorse this year, but an injury knocked him out of the ACRS by the spring. Sea Cadet, another early season star, also was sidelined. Strike the Gold has already clinched the ACRS title in their absence, and he has not come to Del Mar. Even so, the series has produced America’s best thoroughbred performances of 1992 and some moments of high drama.

The main disappointment in the ACRS has been the fragility of racetracks’ support for the innovative program. Oaklawn Park President Charles Cella complained that the overhead costs of the ACRS are too high, and he is pulling the Oaklawn Handicap out of the series.

Santa Anita is supposedly dropping out too. The track prefers to run its $1-million Santa Anita Handicap on a Sunday instead of a Saturday. Rockingham Park canceled the New England Classic this summer because its business was suffering and it couldn’t put up the $500,000 purse. Chicago’s Arlington International chose not to join the series, and seemingly got into a snit when an ACRS race last year upstaged the telecast of the Arlington Million. Now the track will simulcast a third-rate attraction such as the Post-Deb Stakes rather than an ACRS event like the Suburban Handicap.

Weisbord is hurt and disappointed by these snubs because he believes the ACRS is successfully addressing some of the sport’s most serious problems. He said: “If a bunch of business students analyzed the sports business to determine why racing hasn’t kept pace over the last 40 years, they’d probably come to two main conclusions. One: racing did not make itself visible on TV in a structured format. Two: Racing did not move its stars around the country.”

He contrasts racing’s failures with other sports’ successes: The National Basketball Assn.’s television exposure makes Michael Jordan a superstar, but his visibility does not merely benefit the Chicago Bulls.

The ACRS has already begun to work in this way. When horses such as Farma Way, Festin and Best Pal came to Maryland for the Pimlico Special, they were recognizable stars to Maryland fans because they had already been showcased in the earlier ACRS races. This success may encourage Weisbord and the new chairman of the ACRS, David Vance, to enlarge their original concept by staging a series of stakes for another category of horses next year.

A series for sprinters would be a natural. Six-furlong specialists don’t have many money-making opportunities, and it would be relatively easy to lure them to tracks around the country in pursuit of big bucks. Moreover, virtually every track has its own star speedball, and so a national series could create some interesting intersectional rivalries.

The most troubling aspect of the defections is what they say about the leadership of the racing industry.

Thoroughbred racing faces enormous problems, and solving them will require tracks to look beyond their narrow, short-term interests. In the case of an idea like the ACRS, it shouldn’t be so hard for track managements to take the attitude of Del Mar President Joe Harper, who said: “What’s good for Del Mar is secondary here. This gets racing exposure on the networks that benefits the whole sport.”