As the retirement of Point Given illustrates, only marketing and customer service can increase racing's popularity

Dick Schaap, sportswriter, television and radio broadcaster, and all-around observer of the sporting scene, delivered a radio commentary on racing two days after the Travers Stakes (G1). He touched on the age-old lament expressed by a number of people in racing that the sport needs The Big Horse to promote itself to a larger audience-and said the absence for several decades of The Big Horse has hamstrung growth and interest in racing.

Said Schaap on ESPN radio network on August 27: "If only Point Given had won the Kentucky Derby (G1) four months ago, horse racing would now have a super horse, the superstar the sport desperately needs, the superstar the sport has lacked since Secretariat, Seattle Slew, and Affirmed thundered through the 1970s."Since his disappointing fifth-place finish in the Derby, Point Given has won four races in a row, including the Preakness (G1), the Belmont Stakes (G1), and two days ago the Travers-a winning streak so rare that everyone inside Thoroughbred racing recognizes Point Given's greatness. The trouble is that most people outside the sport do not. If the people who run horse racing want to see the sport regain the luster it has lost, they'll reschedule the Kentucky Derby and run it over next month."

It is hard to argue with the notion that racing needs heroes because all sports are based on hero worship to a degree, but racing has a problem not unlike the Little League Baseball World Series: Its stars do not stay around for long. Average age of the starters on the teams that make it to Williamsport, Pennsylvania, for the World Series is 12 (when throwing out Danny Almonte, whose birth records indicate he is 14), while maximum age to play in the World Series is also 12 (again, throwing out Almonte).

Racehorses are not around much longer than the one-year wonders in the Little League Baseball World Series. Average number of starts for a Thoroughbred racehorse today is 21, which is less than three years of competition. Top horses, those that can earn far more in stud fees than purses, do not stick around that long.

The champion two-year-old males of the last decade have made an average of 9.8 career starts: Macho Uno (five career starts before Labor Day), Anees (seven), Answer Lively (14), Favorite Trick (16), Boston Harbor (eight), Maria's Mon (seven), Timber Country (12), Dehere (nine), Gilded Time (six), and Arazi (14).

If racing were dependent on recent champion two-year-old males as promotional vehicles, the campaigns would have derailed after their two-year-old seasons. Only Favorite Trick, Timber Country, Dehere, and Arazi won stakes at age three, and only eight total among them.

Champion three-year-olds, the horses that occupy center stage in the high-profile division of racing, have fared slightly better. In the last ten years, the champion three-year-old male has made an average of 18 career starts: Tiznow (12), Charismatic (17), Real Quiet (20), Silver Charm (24), Skip Away (38), Thunder Gulch (16), Holy Bull (16), Prairie Bayou (12), A.P. Indy (11), and Hansel (14). Of those ten horses, five-Charismatic, Thunder Gulch, Prairie Bayou, A.P. Indy, and Hansel-never started after their three-year-old season. A sixth, Holy Bull, the horse whom many were banking on to be a superstar to carry the sport, broke down in his second start as a four-year-old.

Among older horses, in the last ten years there have been eight champions (Cigar and Skip Away being repeat winners), with those eight making an average of 28.5 career starts: Lemon Drop Kid (24), Victory Gallop (17), Skip Away (38), Cigar (33), The Wicked North (17), Bertrando (24), Pleasant Tap (32), and Black Tie Affair (Ire) (45). Of that group, only Cigar and Skip Away can be regarded as horses who had widespread name recognition, and only Cigar being a real box office draw to those not already knowledgeable of racing.

While there are people like Schaap who may believe that one horse can turn the tide of sentiment toward racing, that is just wishful thinking. The sudden retirement of Point Given just six days after the Travers is further proof that waiting for The Big Horse is futile.

Racing can only achieve long-term growth by promoting itself to a wide audience and by providing those people who are new to racing with a good experience at the track. The National Thoroughbred Racing Association must get people to the track, and once they are there, it is the responsibility of the facility to provide them with an experience that makes them want to return.

That is the only way to grow the game.