How World Thoroughbred Championships can become definitive championship events

What's in a name?

When it comes to the Breeders' Cup, apparently not much, at least not enough in the minds of Breeders' Cup Ltd. and National Thoroughbred Racing Association executives to want to keep the name around in perpetuity.

When the two organizations combined operations, they decided to change the name of racing's championship day for marketing purposes. At the end of June, the two groups (or one, depending on your point of view, announced the name change. The Breeders' Cup will become the Breeders' Cup World Thoroughbred Championships.

Sooner than later, the Breeders' Cup appellation will be dropped, leaving a name completely foreign today to those familiar with racing. For those vaguely familiar or unfamiliar with racing, the new name is a complete mystery. There will be no name recognition whatsoever.

Which brings up why the name was changed: to provide an identity for a series of races leading up to the championship event as well as for the championship races themselves.

A lot of racing insiders have decried the change, saying there was a lot of equity established in the name Breeders' Cup. For a sport slow to change and bound to tradition, the name change is a radical move.

But how good, really, was the name Breeders' Cup? Well, let's look at the Standardbred industry for guidance. It followed the lead of the Thoroughbred industry a number of years ago when it initiated its own championship-type races, calling its series the Breeders Crown. Did that name make you want to watch a Breeders Crown race? And if you did watch, did you understand the significance of the race? The answer is most likely no to both questions.

The name Breeders' Cup itself does not promote racing attendance or provide the uninitiated an idea of what it is. Television ratings confirm that. TV ratings peaked with the first Breeders' Cup and have generally gone downhill every year since.

A new name, then, is not necessarily a bad thing, though there are several problems with the new one. First is the word "championships" and second is the word "world."

Are the races to be known as the Breeders' Cup World Thoroughbred Championships really championship events in a literal sense? No. While the majority of winners of Breeders' Cup races are subsequently voted North American champions, the winners are not automatically champions by virtue of their win. However, if the Breeders' Cup World Thoroughbred Championship races are to be true championship races, the winners should automatically be named champions and winners of Eclipse Awards.

The arguments against that concept are twofold. First, the general belief in racing today is that one race does not a champion make. Second, not all divisions can be settled definitively because there is not a championship event solely for three-year-old males or three-year-old fillies.

There is a way to make the World Thoroughbred Championships a definitive championship event and to provide greater continuity to the racing calendar. To wit: Racing's champions should be crowned based on points earned through a series of races that lead up to and include the Breeders' Cup World Thoroughbred Championships.

Each division would include a series of eight to ten prep races over a six-month period leading up to the World Thoroughbred Championships. To make the culminating World Thoroughbred Championships a championship event, each World Thoroughbred Championship race would be worth three or four times the number of points a Grade 1 prep race in the series is worth. That would put the winner of the World Thoroughbred Championship race in position to be named champion with a modicum of other success during the year. If that is the only race the horse wins, another horse could earn championship honors by being outstanding in a majority of the other races in the division.

As for this "world" thing in the title that everyone seems to ridicule, is the World Thoroughbred Championships really a world championship? No. But the World Series does not decide the baseball champion of the world.

Puffery in a title is okay, because even the Super Bowl was not super at its origination, either. But when a name becomes ingrained in the psyche, it sounds right.

In the not-too-distant future, the World Thoroughbred Championships can be embraced by everyone in racing if it can deliver what the Breeders' Cup has not-more recognition, more sponsors, more fans, and a more definitive and satisfactory conclusion to the racing year.