As a new year approaches, Thoroughbred racing faces a strange situation. No matter what happens in 2016, it will be extremely difficult for the sport to top what happened this year.
That's because 2015 served a valuable lesson in the power of technology.
Even if a current 2-year-old follows in American Pharoah's hoofprints and pulls off another Grand Slam, due to the back-to-back nature of the accomplishment it most likely will not generate the spectacular fanfare we witnessed in the last six months or so. Close, sure. But greater? Unlikely, as you can expect many of American Pharoah's fans to maintain that the next champion is a notch below the last one.
It also served a valuable lesson in the power of new technology.
Racing has rarely embraced change quickly, explaining many of its ills. Yet while advances like high-definition telecasts and social media alone did not make "Pharoah" an American Idol, they no doubt helped to increase his popularity to the point where the Zayat Stables' 3-year-old was leading the
Kansas City Royals in the balloting for Sports Illustrated's "Sportsman of the Year" as of Nov. 20.
And hopefully that will not be lost in the afterglow of such a captivating year. The ability to watch American Pharoah in national HD telecasts no doubt enhanced the viewing pleasure of some great races.
While poker tournaments can be viewed on networks like ESPN in vivid HD images, racing is viewed in flat images each day on racing channels like TVG or HRTV because the majority of tracks do not have HD cameras.
During the Triple Crown and American Pharoah's subsequent starts in the Haskell, Travers and Breeders' Cup Classic, people saw on NBC's HD telecasts what they are missing on a daily basis. Some of the scenes at those races resembled paintings, as they allowed viewers to absorb all of the color, pageantry and excitement of those races in a way that doesn't come across from other feeds.
Meanwhile, if you have a big, 60-inch HD television and stumble across one of the racing channels while channel surfing, your first reaction would be to call a repairman. Gone is your sharp, crystal-clear HD images that enable you to see the 5 o'clock shadow on your favorite professional athlete.
In a sense, it's nothing new since, racing and television have had a rocky marriage. In the 1960s, like professional sports teams, racing was leery of television and its impact on attendance. But while pro sports changed their attitudes in the 1970s and 1980s, racing was late to the party. And when it finally woke up to the power of a television signal, it found limited demand for its product from the networks.
Even when high definition arrived, which seemed a perfect fit for a colorful event like racing, the sport did not look at the big picture. Instead of seeing the benefits of HD and the need to keep pace with pro sports, racing looked at the cost and put it on the back burner for another day in the future.
The industry's general opinion about HD a few years was best expressed by one racing executive who said an HD picture would not convince someone to bet more on a race. My response? While that was certainly correct for a longtime fan like myself, if racing wanted my children to become fans, it needed to embrace the same type of technology that they can see during an NFL or MLB game.
It's taken awhile, but Churchill Downs now has a 171-foot wide HD LED video board in its infield, and more and more of the major tracks are now adding HD signals. Hopefully the indelible HD images of American Pharoah will convince more of them to join the modern era.
As for social media, since there's no real cost for equipment, most of the major tracks have already embraced platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the sport's top personalities. Of the top seven trainers in 2015 earnings as of Nov. 20, none of them has a Twitter account. That includes Bob Baffert, American Pharoah's Hall of Fame trainer.
Baffert, at least, is a natural in front of a camera and microphone, and his personality played a huge role in building a fan base for American Pharoah. Yet if not for the way the colt's owners, the Zayat family, embraced social media -- in particular Twitter -- the entire experience might not have been as exhilarating, satisfying and personal for so many people.
Through Twitter, both 53-year-old owner Ahmed Zayat and his son, 23-year-old Justin Zayat, reached out to American Pharoah's fans on a daily basis and conversed with them, letting them know what was happening with a horse that belonged to both the Zayats and the nation.
To understand the reach the Zayats had, consider that neither Ken McPeek nor Graham Motion, two of the industry's most digitally savvy trainers, have more 18,000 followers on Twitter. The New York Racing Association's Twitter account has less than 30,000 followers.
In contrast, for the last six months of American Pharoah's magical career, Ahmed Zayat reached out to a legion of followers that now is now 137,000 strong. Justin Zayat has about 49,000 followers.
Without question, winning the Triple Crown made American Pharoah an instant celebrity and a permanent part of racing history. Yet by interacting with fans so freely, his owners made the entire campaign a more satisfying experience for fans and sparked the kind of energy that led to some 15,000 people turning out at Saratoga just to watch the 12th Triple Crown champion gallop around the track during morning exercise.
Perhaps next year, someone will bid to become the 13th Triple Crown champion. But racing will be making a big mistake if it believes the chase alone will create the same -- or even greater -- amount of electricity without the help of connections who engage as freely with fans as American Pharoah's did.
Fans are going to expect access and interaction, and racing must deliver it. In a related note illustrating the rising role of social media in the industry, the Hong Kong Jockey Club has hired a team of 12 people with significant social media clout to attend next month's international meet and help publicize it to the world.
While a venture along those lines might be too ambitious for the average American racetrack, it surely reflects how important new forms of media have become for racing and how vital new technology can be -- with or without a Triple Crown winner.
There's no doubt the very nature of the 37-year Triple Crown drought made 2015 a year that will be recounted for decades and serve as a lasting example of how a dynamic superstar and a jettison of the outdated methods of operation can rejuvenate the sport.