World Series of Horse Racing?

By Gene Kershner, EquiSpace

While checking out some of John Daly's funky golf pants the other day, I started thinking about the Skins Game, a made-for-TV golf event, usually held around Thanksgiving which would bring together that year's hottest names in golf.  This led me to thinking about how what kind of made for TV event could bring horse racing back into the mainstream again after the Triple Crown Season is put to rest.  Also, in my thought process was how can we get Zenyatta and Rachel Alexandra into the same race.  Golf used to put together its four major winners into the World Series of Golf match that was a made-for-TV event, which is now the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational.  This got the gears (squirrels) spinning in my head even further.  Using Ernie Munick's idea of a race during halftime of the Thanksgiving Day Lions game, which would be the perfect time to produce my dream event called the World Series of Horse Racing, which could be held during the fall meet at Churchill Downs.  Can you think of a better time slot for promoting horse racing to the masses?

Here's how a horse would qualify:

1)         Must win a Grade I over 8.5 furlongs

2)         Must be at least 3 years old

3)         Field limited to top 14 qualifiers based on set criteria (i.e, standings, earnings)

Based on the above criteria, here is the list of the top 20 horses through June 30^th that would qualify for the WS of Horse Racing event if we used the Thoroughbred Bloggers Alliance Standings based on a point system for graded wins:

That's a pretty impressive list of horses vying for the national championship of racing.  You've got the Classic winners, you've got the Dubai Cup winner, you've got Zenyatta, in addition to quality 3 year olds like I Want Revenge, Quality Road and Pioneerof the Nile and quality older horses like Einstein and Macho Again.  Talk about a monster race that would generate some unbelievable chatter, not only in horse racing land, but in the main stream. 

Of course there are a slew of other issues to work out like weight assignments, purse money, television rights, my vig (thought I'd slip that one in there), how it affects the Breeders Cup, etc.  Of course, Wayne Lukas will probably put this out there next year as his idea anyway. 

Could it work?