The horse racing elite are upset by the Preakness' "Get Your Preak On" campaign:

Baltimore, you must be proud.

Here it is, the start of Preakness Week, all eyes in the world of horse racing riveted on our city, thousands of visitors pouring in for Saturday's big race, the fabled second jewel of the Triple Crown.

And everywhere you go, there are signs urging folks to "Get Your Preak On."

And radio commercials talking about "Getting Your Preak On."

Nice. Just what the city needs.

Just what horse racing needs, too.

Here's a sport that's already on life support, enjoyed by about two dozen people under the age of 70 across the entire country.

Have you been to the track lately?

It's a bunch of old guys sipping beer and chomping on cigars while they study the Daily Racing Form as if it were Scripture.

So what better way to revive the sport than with a sleazy ad campaign that plays on a sexually suggestive hip-hop song?

So let me get this straight: horse racing is a dying sport with an aging fanbase so it shouldn't try youth-oriented marketing campaigns? Huh?

Predictably, the "Get Your Preak On" campaign and its accompanying $10 off admission and $20 all-you-can-drink deal are huge hits and Preakness ticket sales are up 25%. So what's the problem?

The problem is that the racing elite don't like it. Like many industry insiders, they don't understand that they're not the market. They don't get that, in fact, marketing campaigns that don't appeal to them are the very ones that may well be the most effective. This doesn't just happen in horse racing either - you can get a like-minded group of executives in any industry in a room and they're likely to shoot down anything that doesn't speak to them - regardless of who the actual market is.

While "Get Your Preak On" is a good start, it's just a one-time blowout - what can horse racing do to market itself throughout the year? Here are my ideas:

1. Create a rule whereby a horse cannot be registered as a thoroughbred unless its parents a) never ran in a race or b) are at least six years old at the time of the horse's birth. What this does is remove the financial incentive to retire horses at the end of their three-year old season. Basically, under this rule, once a horse runs you couldn't breed them until they turned 5, so if you can't breed, you'll race. And, if you race, you'll create stars that last more than 5 weeks and better competition. People love Zenyatta and she draws a crowd outside of regular horse racing fans - that happens because she's been around for awhile. Horse racing needs to figure out a way for that to be the norm, not the exception.

2. Create high stakes fantasy leagues. Acknowledge that not every fan is going to learn to read the Daily Racing Form and go to the track that often. But, at the same time, allow them to get invested in the results of major races throughout the year. There are so many opportunities for fantasy leagues, from nationwide, year-long leagues to meet specific leagues (i.e. Saratoga only). Much like you care about the NCAA basketball tourney because of your brackets, you could care about the results of the Suburban Handicap because of your fantasy league.

3. Market the horse. In horse racing, the human connections are typically unbelievably wealthy owners, weird reclusive trainers and creepily strong little people. These are not people the common man or woman can relate to. Horses, however, are noble & beautiful creatures. We love animals. More pretty ponies, less pretty people.

4. Get on TV. Back in the early days of television, networks were desperate for programming. Apparently, they wanted to show horse racing, but tracks balked at giving away their product for free. Baseball, however, had no problem with it and thus began the rise of "America's Pastime" and the fall of the "Sport of Kings". At this point, racing just needs to be on TV more. Heck, with networks canceling soap operas left and right, maybe racing can fill up some of that programing vacuum. If not, the sport should consider buying time to show racing. The actual product, the horse race, is fantastic - the goal should be to get that product in front of as many people as possible because it'll sell itself.

5. Make it easy to get to the track. Of course tracks are filled with 70-year olds. They don't have jobs - they can hang out at 2 on a Tuesday. The rest of us aren't so lucky. Tracks have started to experiment with Friday night racing and so far it's been successful, but why stop there? Tracks could market racing "happy hours" every week, etc. Most people are surprised at how nice racetracks are - but in order to be surprised they have to actually set foot in one. Make it very easy for people to get that first foot in the door.

6. Make it special. Racing six days a week for 5 months at a time dilutes the product. Races have smaller fields and there's no urgency to get to the track. Tracks should, whenever possible, have shorter meets and run for 4 or 5 days a week. There's nothing to say they can't pack in more races a day (and, if we're moving to more night racing that makes sense) but those days need to feel more special and exclusive.

7. Clean itself up. Get rid of all drugs - including currently legal drugs like Lasix. Immediately ban anyone for life for drug infractions. Establish even bigger industry-wide retirement programs. If horse racing wants to live in the mainstream they need to proactively take the highroad. Racing wants to be in the spotlight, but it won't do the sport any good if that spotlight shines on some of the unsavory aspects of the game.

8. Finally, to accomplish all of this - name a Racing Tsar who has power over the Jockey Club, the NTRA and all of the tracks. Give this person the control they need to enact these changes. Also, they should consider hiring me :)