Perhaps as early as this Thursday the Breeders' Cup board will make an important decision about the event's future.
If Breeders' Cup names a long-term or permanent host track (rumored to be Santa Anita), it will be a departure from one of the Cup's best traditions - a rotating venue.
A roaming Breeders' Cup has a communal feel to it, giving the whole industry a sense of ownership. A permanent site threatens to make it parochial.
The logical move for the immediate future is a geographically balanced, four-year rotation that roughly mirrors what the Cup has been doing the last 26 years: Churchill Downs-Belmont Park-Santa Anita-rotating random site.
This plan shares the year-end championship between the Midwest, East Coast, and West Coast, with an opportunity every fourth year to expand internationally or spotlight other American tracks.
No track hosted the Cup for two consecutive years until Santa Anita in 2008-'09. It was a puzzling move considering the controversy surrounding Santa Anita's synthetic main track, which not only has drainage problems but so far has not yielded a single Breeders' Cup winner that previously raced on dirt, the surface favored by American racing for more than 200 years.
That decision cost the Breeders' Cup (and the sport) a potential all-time great moment had Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta settled the Horse of the Year debate on the track. Rachel's owner Jess Jackson kept her out of the 2009 Cup because of Santa Anita's surface.
Imagine if Major League baseball announced the World Series will be played at Fenway Park every year, and they were replacing the stadium's dirt and grass with a new synthetic material that would favor a certain type of ballplayer. Or the NFL decided the Super Bowl always will be played at the Louisiana Superdome.
The Boston Red Sox and New Orleans Saints only make it to the championship once in a while. Horses based at a permanent Breeders' Cup site will be there every year. It would create a home field advantage that is unprecedented in major sports.
At a time when the industry needs to come together, an end to the Breeders' Cup rotation could further splinter it.
Rotating sites is part of the Cup's identity. If it aint broke, don't fix it.
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5 comments:
. A permanent site threatens to make it parochial. You nailed it! The perfect word to capture how the proposal would eventually trivialize the event. Right now, their brand transcends any one track, but a permanent home allows for the "home track" to absorb the unique BC image. And of course, it ties the future success of the BC to one track and its governing agency. Really doesn't make sense to me.
Thanks TM, and excellent point about the BC brand transcending any one track.
Parochial: Narrowly restricted in scope or outlook; provincial
I have not heard a good reason FOR a permanent site.
"I have not heard a good reason FOR a permanent site."
Probably because there isn't one. It is sad watching something so great be destroyed, one bad decision at a time.
I wrote about this a while back, it's money plain and simple, it's cheaper to keep it one spot. If I was Belmont I'd schedule a dirt BC and see who's left standing at the end of the day.
I hope they do NOT give it a permanent home. The variety is what makes the BC so special, bringing in die-hard fans from across the country and recruiting new fans from the venue, even the small ones like Monmouth and Lone Star are a nice change from time to time. Having it in one spot (even Churchill, close to me) would make the BC stale really quick.
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