I'll Have Another was not going to save horse racing. Let's get that out of the way right now.
Had the Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner indeed started on Saturday at Belmont Racetrack, he may well have become the first horse to win the Triple Crown in more than three decades, since Affirmed last accomplished the feat in 1978.
It wouldn't have "saved" horse racing, the same way the Manny Pacquiao vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr. fight isn't going to "save" boxing, if and when it ever happens. The idea of either sport holding the same place in the American sports pantheon that it once did is a pipe dream, horse racing even more so than boxing.
Boxing has myriad problems that won't be explored at great length in this space, including (but not limited to) the plethora of different sanctioning bodies , an excessive number of weight classes, and the stranglehold that the technically proficient but perennially unexciting Klitschko brothers have on the heavyweight division. That having been said, however, the continued life of sport through the Olympics and the general human attraction to fights and fighting that Dana White continually points to as a reason for the UFC's success make it somewhat conceivable, however unlikely, that boxing may one day have a renaissance.
Horse racing, on the other hand, is destined for continued decline, in large part because of the problem that's keeping I'll Have Another out of Saturday's race: injuries. As the treatment of animals grows as an issue in the public eye, the injuries sustained by horses during the course of racing make the sport ever less palatable in the public eye. The HBO series Luck, which starred Dustin Hoffman and was viewed by some as a potential boon to the racing industry, was canceled in the wake of a third horse death during production.
In the course of I'll Have Another's run at the Triple Crown, trainer Doug O'Neill has been in the spotlight, with his history of drug violations being the elephant in the room amidst the horse's success. These concerns aren't going to go anywhere. They will only grow louder, to the point where it's impossible to imagine horse racing as a regular mainstream sports attraction.
However, even in the sport's decline, there will still be the Triple Crown, at least for the foreseeable future. American sports fans can still be counted on to care, at least somewhat, about horse racing on the first Saturday in May, and again two weeks later, when the Kentucky Derby winner looks to continue his success at Preakness.
The Belmont, on the other hand, gets the short end of the stick all too often. When the possibility of a Triple Crown winner falls by the wayside, Belmont loses its appeal. That's happened in six of the last seven years, the only exception coming in 2008, when Big Brown won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness.
That year, 94,476 attended the race to see Da'Tara dash the hopes of racing fans. Last year, 55,779 turned out to Belmont, up from 45,243.
Regardless of whether I'll Have Another won or lost on Saturday, Belmont was due for a big win, even if the sport contested there wasn't.
With I'll Have Another scratched - becoming the first Kentucky and Preakness winner since Bold Venture in 1936 to miss the race - the real loser is Belmont.
