T here are ever fewer of us around who can clearly remember the world before the advent of television.

I ’ve always thought racing is the world’s greatest sport for many reasons, chief among them the fact that human and animal are united in an athletic contest that mirrors and condenses “real life” in every single race.

T he first time I can remember thinking about “elites” in the horse world was in connection with preparing for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Equestrian Events, to be held at Santa Anita.

W hen I first joined the management of Santa Anita in 1971 (that’s right, over a half-century ago), one of the earliest meetings I had with its leadership made an everlasting impression on me.

I’m reminded of racing’s counterproductive fiefdoms by a 2008 writing in these pages of the late Arnold Kirkpatrick, my much-revered colleague and friend. Back then, it seemed to him, there were way too many fiefs in the way of industry-wide accomplishments.

If you’re of a certain age, you can’t help but remember Alfred E. Neuman, the perennial cover creature of MAD magazine. I sure do, and not mainly because of the magazine’s content …

Among my earliest childhood memories is loving elephants. As soon as I first laid eyes on them in the San diego Zoo, I was fixated.

When Abraham Lincoln was only 28 years old, he delivered his Lyceum Speech, in Springfield, Illinois. When it was published, it was instrumental in establishing the reputation that led to his presidency decades later.

Those of us of a certain age vividly remember Walter Annenberg, friend of presidents, Ambassador to the Court of St. James, master of Sunnylands in Rancho Mirage, and publisher of Daily Racing Form.

But stop and think: American racing is and has been since the 1930s essentially political, since it’s a state-regulated industry. It’s about to add another layer of government regulation, now that in their mutual wisdom The Jockey Club, United States Congress, and former President of the United States have just enacted new legislation to elaborate racing regulation still further. And complicate it?

Over the last 65 years, since I first was a horse-crazy kid, doing anything I could to be with these animals, I’ve spent an inordinate time around horse trainers.

And it’s long past time for racing’s leaders to recognize the overwhelming threats to the sport and act decisively and intelligently.

One of the few upsides of having months to worry and reflect about where we all are in our lives and our sport, is that we have time to reflect.

Justice—and injustice—are as old as humanity. Our contemporary ideas and standards of fairness trace all the way back to the very beginnings of recorded history, whether in Egypt, Greece or Rome.

Looking back over 2019, it seems to me this has been The Year of the Bromide. Our own annus horribilus in so many ways, including having to endure so many of those truisms, many of them dubious, owing to racing’s regrettable circumstances.

Given the ongoing train wrecks or meltdowns (take your pick) we’re now experiencing in our racing lives, isn’t it about time to try to figure out what the hell happened in the last six months? Why it did? What’s still to come? And what to do about all this?

You never know how much you can do until you try to undo what you just did.” So proclaimed my old riding teacher, one of the world’s greatest horsemen. Constantly. He was talking about teaching and training horses, of course, but the same wisdom applies to business, all business, and in our case, the plight of racing today in America, especially California.

It’s amazing what can be accomplished when nobody cares who gets the credit.” This saying has come to me often in the weeks since Thursday, December 7, 2017, when a catastrophic wildfire claimed the lives of scores of racehorses at San Luis Rey Downs in Bonsall, California.

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) understood education and persuasion as well as anyone else ever has. He once said that when you want to convert someone to your view, you go over to where he’s standing, take him by the hand (mentally speaking), and guide him to where you want him to go.

Way, way back in 1986, I was invited to speak at The Jockey Club Round Table in August at Saratoga. I thought it went fine. After all, I reasoned at the time, I was leaving Santa Anita and racing altogether, and could “tell it like it is.”

Anyone who has witnessed the saga of racing at Santa Anita this winter needs no repeated recitation of the facts . . . to say that the sport as we have known it is jeopardized in California, and perhaps North America, is a gross understatement.

Not too long after this esteemed magazine published my last essay, one of my “admirers” contacted me with her own opinions. “You’re so smug and condescending,” she said. And went on to berate me for “never” doing anything except calling attention to problems, “never” offering solutions, “never” recognizing that it’s a far, far different world now than in my relative youth. And I’m “always snarky” besides.