01:00 AM EDT on Friday, May 6, 2005

Everybody's a horse racing fan on Derby Day.

As for the other 364 days of the year, ask most sports fans what they think about "racing" and they'll probably start talking about NASCAR and Jeff Gordon, not the NTRA and Jerry Bailey.

It wasn't always that way.

For much of the 20th century, horse racing was a major sport, followed avidly by the masses -- who flocked to the track in large numbers, especially on Saturdays -- and covered extensively, enthusiastically, and eruditely in the nation's newspapers by such great sportswriters as Grantland Rice and Red Smith.

I well remember, as a kid growing up in Pawtucket in the late 1950s and early '60s, how it was all but impossible to cross Newport Avenue on a Saturday when the horses were running at Narragansett Park, because the traffic would be bumper-to-bumper all the way from the track entrance near the border with East Providence, back to the Massachusetts state line.

Even then, though, Narragansett was in decline, no longer attracting such legends as Seabiscuit and Whirlaway, as it had in the '30s and '40s. And, by the early '70s, it was gone.

At the end, going to 'Gansett was like visiting a mansion that had fallen on hard times. Only a few hardcore fans rattled around the once-fashionable facility, betting on cheap claimers trying to get six furlongs on their sore, unsound legs.

Gone, too, are lovely Rockingham Park, in Salem, N.H., and little Lincoln Downs. In East Boston, Suffolk Downs is struggling to hang on, hoping the state legislature will allow slot machines at the track to boost attendance and revenue and, as result, increase purse money and attract better horses.

The famous Massachusetts Handicap will not be run this year because the financially-strapped track has had to drop its stakes program.

"We've had to face up to it," said Bob O'Malley, Suffolk's chief operating officer. "This is our 'survivor' year. We need legislation, otherwise we'll dwindle away."

Although thoroughbred racing has dwindled considerably in appeal from its heyday, there still are "boutique" meets that are immensely popular, none more so than the summer meeting at Saratoga. Del Mar, just north of San Diego, also hosts a well-attended summer meet, and tracks such as Belmont Park, Gulfstream and Santa Anita also do well.

But, unlike Saratoga, which is always crowded, massive Belmont Park is barely 10 percent full most racing days.

Because, most days, most sports fans pay no attention to horse racing.

There's tremendous interest if, as has been the case the past two years, there's a chance for a Triple Crown winner at the Belmont Stakes. And the Breeders Cup races in the fall also draw notice, although it's primarily among the sport's devoted fans, not the general public.

"This Saturday will be the height of attention," said O'Malley, "and racing will maintain that interest through the Belmont (Stakes) if there's a potential Triple Crown winner. There's a tremendous dropoff in interest in racing after the Triple Crown. The Breeder's Cup captures the horseplayer's attention, but not the average sports fan's."

At tracks such as Suffolk, many of the patrons come to bet, not on the live racing in front of them, but on the larger tracks whose races are being simulcast on television.

"There isn't the interest in the local product from day to day," O'Malley said. "There's more interest in out-of-town races."

It's also possible now to watch and wager on races via computer.

"You can sit at home in a comfortable chair with a cool drink and see all the racing you want," O'Malley said.

That's fine, if wagering is all that interests you. But that deprives you of the ambience at the track, with all its colorful characters.

"I always remember," said O'Malley, "the line from Dave Wilson, who was the racing writer with the old Record in Boston: 'Suffolk Downs is the only place where a Ph.D. from M.I.T. would chase a tattered bum across the apron asking, "What do you know?" ' "