Triple Crown Win by American Pharoah a Potential Gift and Curse for Horse Racing

Make no mistake: The sport of horse racing is rooting for American Pharoah to win Saturday's Belmont Stakes. There isn't one person in the stables who won't walk away happy if Pharoah becomes the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978—even Bob Baffert and Co.'s biggest competitors.

"Is it gonna be good if he wins? Absolutely," trainer Nick Zito told Dan Wolken of USA Today. "I'm a horse trainer. I want to win that race, I want to make history myself. However, if American Pharoah wins and I got my eighth (Belmont Stakes) second place...I'm gonna say, 'Where do I sign?' I'd be delighted. The game is bigger than everybody."

The game to which Zito refers is certainly the biggest short-term winner of an American Pharoah triumph. For every year since 1978, we've paid attention to these three races, only to come away with the exact same storyline each time. The faces, names and horses are different, but they're essentially nouns in a game of Mad Libs.

Every Triple Crown failure runs through the same gamut. There's the recap, which highlights the disappointment of the trainer, jockey and owners. There is the retrospective, which discusses where this failure ranks among the others. There is the analysis of what it all means and why there hasn't been a Triple Crown winner in so long. Then two weeks later we've all totally forgotten the Triple Crown exists.

An American Pharoah win? All bets are off.

It's a rare event that most covering the sport have never seen. My mother was eight years old the last time there was a Triple Crown winner. I was 14 the last time a horse so much as came close to taking the third leg. Even those who were around to remember Affirmed probably weren't in the business at the time.

Coverage of American Pharoah's win, and by proxy horse racing, will extend further than most of the audience has ever seen. Pharoah would truly become this generation's Secretariat, a dominant fixture that single-handedly revives interest in horse racing. (Apologies in advance if this all culminates in an awful Disney movie.)

Hell, it's possible a horse will win Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year. 

Baffert and the Zayat family will have the option to continue Pharoah's career beyond his three-year-old season. The Triple Crown narrative could become the "will he ever lose?" narrative. The sport as a whole would generate countless eyeballs from publications and casual fans who never typed the word "thoroughbred" a day in their lives.

A Triple Crown winner equals more mainstream media coverage which equals more interest in horse racing which equals more attendance and purses at North American racetracks.

Julie Jacobson/Associated Press

Without a doubt, the short-term benefits of American Pharoah winning Saturday are infinite. Over the long term? I'm not so sure.

Now more than ever, we're a culture where novelty sells. Television networks have resurrected the miniseries to satiate our nonexistent attention spans and coax movie stars to the small screen to draw our attention. Almost every movie needs to be an event, which is why Ant-Man is going to make $80 billion despite being about the lamest superhero in existence. Music artists Beyonce their albums just to get themselves trending on social media.

Saturday's Belmont Stakes is the type of event that is ready-made for 2015. People wear silly outfits that can be made fun of on social media. The whole race takes two minutes. There's a potential of what could be a once-in-a-lifetime event happening at the end. Every year until there is a Triple Crown winner, horse racing can run through an eerily similar gamut.

But what happens once the novelty wears off? When the event of a Triple Crown just becomes that thing that happened not too long ago?

Julie Jacobson/Associated Press

History says nothing good. While we have no concrete evidence on the table of what happens after a Triple Crown winner, we do know what happens when horse racing isn't drawing high-profile coverage. In 2014, California Chrome's bid for the trifecta drew 20.6 million viewers. In 2013, with the possibility of a Triple Crown off the table, about a third of that total watched the race.

The horse racing industry has long since moved past gate receipts keeping the business afloat, but television ratings matter a ton. More eyeballs equal higher rights fees equal higher purses and more improvements to the sport as a whole. I'd venture to guess that if Pharoah wins Saturday and another horse wins the first two races in 2016, the ratings to the latter will pale in comparison to the former.

Tim Capps, director of the University of Louisville's equine industry program, told Wolken of USA Today:

"

People in the industry have long since realized a Triple Crown winner isn't going to all of sudden turn the sport into something everybody in the country gravitates toward. It's a positive story and will make people follow him wherever he shows up. He'll be a celebrity for awhile. He'll have a following and there will be more attention paid to the sport in general for a period of time, as long as he's around and probably through the (next) Triple Crown itself, though it gets a fair amount of hype anyway.

Does it make a real difference moving the sport forward or making it more mainstream? I think most people in the industry realize it's not going to happen.

"

In the same way the horse racing industry is thirsty for a Triple Crown winner, it's also fearful of what comes next. I'm not going to care as much about next year's Kentucky Derby if Pharoah breaks the streak. Neither are you. Neither is anyone associated with the sport. That's an unfair reality of a sport that's built almost its entire modern existence on one accomplishment.

The only thing scarier than no one pulling off the feat is what happens when someone does.

Follow Tyler Conway (@tylerconway22) on Twitter