What was witnessed live by 115,000 people and countless millions on television last Saturday was another defining moment for a sport filled with such memories.

Afleet Alex’s Preakness was in its own way the equal of Secretariat’s Belmont, Personal Ensign’s Distaff, Arazi‘s Breeders‘ Cup Juvenile. If you saw it, you can never forget it.

The kind of athleticism and courage demonstrated by both horse and rider was of a kind that only horseracing provides. Singular moments like these are why fans fall in love with the game in the first place.

Yet, I am angry and filled with dread.

I fear that what happens when thoroughbreds get together between the fences even on racing’s biggest days has become irrelevant for the greed and ignorance of the keepers inside the sport and the do-gooders outside it that would legislate morality to further their political ambition.

In California, for instance, insurance costs have become so high that horsemen are leaving in droves. It is a state where its leading citizen would give the reigns of gaming expansion to Native Americans with deficit-closing bucks rather than throw a tradition rich agri-business a lifeline.

In New York, an embattled racing association fighting for its existence felt compelled to establish the country’s first detention barn mandated for all horses to keep cheaters at bay. It’s a place where bet-takers plead to raise takeout to compete with interests that lower it by offering discounts to their best customers through rebates.

In Florida this week, four gaming establishments in Broward county are suing to allow the installation of slots at tracks and frontons now because while the voting public approved that referendum, government factions argue about how proceeds would be divided.

In Maryland yesterday, a house leader chastised track management for not doing enough to save their business short of slots legalization and for not being earnest enough to get hands-on with the project, resorting instead to spending millions on lobbyist palm pressing. The race itself was run beneath the specter of Preakness Lost.

In Massachusetts on Monday, Boston’s leading citizen called for slots legalization for Suffolk Downs and other tracks, citing potential loss of thousands of jobs that would accompany the shuttering of racetracks.

But the most damaging to the potential future health of the sport came from, of all places, Arizona, where a bill was written and introduced in Washington D.C. called “The Unlawful Internet Gambling Act of 2005.” Ironically, the industry itself was its catalyst.

Rather than creatively trying to compete with off-shore rebate shops that cater to the industry’s best customers by discounting wagers, the industry leaned on various forms of government to abolish the competition so the tracks and OTBs could go back to business as usual. It backfired.

Rather than stand pat, the island of Antigua appealed to the World Trade Organization claiming that the “Interstate Horseracing Act” permitting electronic wagers between states where its legal, i.e. simulcasting, discriminates against foreign operators. The WTO upheld Antigua’s claim.

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