Can Smarty Jones Be Jackpot for Racetracks?

May 29, 2004 -- A four-legged lobbyist?

When the little colt Smarty Jones bolts from the gate to catch the Triple Crown in the Belmont on June 5, the competition won't only be running alongside.

He'll also be running for the entire racetrack industry against booming riverboat gambling and Indian casinos, both now raking in profits and stealing horse race fans.

"It's absolutely astounding what's happened with Smarty Jones this year!" says Alan Foreman, chairman and CEO of the Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association.

Something magic about this plucky little chestnut has raised the hopes of racetrack owners that he may be their emissary to state legislatures, inspiring them to ease gambling restrictions on tracks and help revive the struggling horse race industry.

Hopes shot up when Smarty Jones won the Triple Crown's first two races — despite having earlier cracked his skull when rearing up in a starting gate, almost dying, and requiring tricky eye surgery while his skull reknitted.

Seabiscuit Effect

Much smaller and shorter than his serious rivals, Smarty Jones has fed hopes that he will create some sort of Seabiscuit effect — like that revived in American memory by the recent movie about that heart-warming undersized winner of 1938.

Smarty Jones offers striking similarities. "He's a little horse but his got a great stride on him," say his trainers.

And when he pranced to victories with a long lead in both the Kentucky Derby and Preakness, he made it look not only easy but inevitable.

If he takes the Belmont to become the first Triple Crown winner in 26 years, horse race executives hope it would generate a new romance about horseracing and convince more state legislatures they should legalize slot machines for the tracks.

That would mean more race tracks could become so-called "racinos," with horse racing just one of several attractions.

Your horse loses? Try the one-armed bandits.