This isn’t about six races. It’s about survival.

If it feels like the Thoroughbred Championship Series — a six-race competition announced jointly this week by Churchill Downs and the New York Racing Association — is a Hail Mary attempt to save horse racing from national extinction, well, it just might be true.

The Kentucky Derby has never been as popular as it was this year, but the overall health of the sport continues to lose its pulse. The 152nd running at Churchill Downs was watched by an average of 19.6 million viewers on NBC and Peacock, with a peak audience of more than 24 million during the final stretch. Those are record numbers, yet fairly equivalent to a regular-season “Sunday Night Football” telecast in the fall. The other 51 weeks, horse racing is mostly irrelevant.

No church can survive with full pews on Easter Sunday and empty rows the rest of the year, and so it is with horse racing, a sport with empty cathedrals and dwindling offering plates.

In 2025, the number of thoroughbred races fell below 30,000 for the first time since the 1950s, according to Equibase, the racing industry’s official database. The total handle fell to around $11 billion, down about $200 million from 2024.

There was a time when horses had the monopoly on gambling. One of the few ways to bet legally was at the track. That’s no longer true. The expansion of state lotteries, the spread of casinos across the country and the explosion in online gambling sites (including the recent rise of prediction markets) allow bettors to place wagers from their couches on any sport imaginable. The American Gaming Association projected a $30 billion handle in legal sports betting for the entire NFL season last year.

Horse tracks that once bustled with tens of thousands of bettors now sit mostly vacant. They are as useful now as pagers and rotary phones.

Hawthorne Race Course, Chicago’s last remaining operating track and Illinois’ oldest sporting venue, ceased operations last month after 135 years and likely faces permanent closure amid bankruptcy proceedings. Hawthorne follows three other parks that closed across Chicagoland over roughly the past decade. The same track deaths are occurring in various states around the country.

Aqueduct ceased live racing in Queens earlier this summer after 132 years of operation. It will remain open for simulcast betting for another month before permanently closing. Cal Expo closed last year in Sacramento, Calif., effectively ending regular harness racing in California. Major tracks across Michigan, Florida, Massachusetts, Maine and Oregon have all shuttered in recent years. Though Belmont Park is close to reopening after a multiyear renovation, few new tracks are under construction. The largest concept, a $550 million track for thoroughbred racing that would open in Las Vegas in 2029, faces significant obstacles with Nevada gaming laws.

Given the financial woes, coupled with the animal rights groups that continue to dent the sport’s economics, it’s fair to wonder what form horse racing will take in another 25 years.

Activists have not directly led to the demise of horse racing, but they have certainly accelerated the process by highlighting the sport’s doping scandals and amplifying images of animal mistreatment to a generation more sensitive to animal suffering for entertainment purposes.

Tracks that lack casino revenue or do not receive state subsidies will likely continue to struggle and eventually close unless there is drastic change.

The Thoroughbred Championship Series, set to begin next year, might be the last hope at stemming the tide if it’s not already too late. The six races for 3-year-olds will begin the first weekend in May and extend through September to better capture the market and mimic more popular American sports with standings, rivalries and storylines that fans can follow throughout the summer.

All of this remains a work in progress. The fact the series excluded the Preakness may inadvertently increase chances at future Triple Crowns.

Preakness officials have already countered their exclusion in the series by pushing back their date an extra eight days, giving horses three weeks to recover from the Derby and perhaps entice more trainers to enter.

It also inadvertently pressures the Belmont to delay its running an extra week or face the same time crunch the Preakness has endured for years. As it stands, trainers now will have only two weeks to prepare for the longer track in Elmont, N.Y., should they run in the Preakness. If the Belmont responds by delaying its race an extra week (there appears to be no logical reason it can’t), it will evenly distribute rest between all three races on the circuit with roughly three weeks in between each event.

Preakness officials should have done this years ago. The past two Derby winners, and four of the past six, bypassed running in the Preakness because of the quick turnaround, thereby ending any hope of a Triple Crown. The creation of this series, at minimum, seems to be rebalancing the calendar into a more palatable structure.

Can it save the industry? That’s a tougher ask. There are a lot of empty pews to fill.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — There was never a doubt about what the Cubs needed entering the trade deadline. Team president Jed Hoyer and manager Craig Counsell were clear pitching was the priority. Hoyer was true to his word, adding four pitchers, including Friday’s starter, Kevin Gausman, to a team that looks primed to make a playoff run.

But it’s not as if the starting pitching was a mess entering the day. Since July 1, Cubs starters were first in the National League with a 3.29 ERA.

After one start, Gausman seems to fit right in. The veteran righty went seven innings and allowed just two runs on four hits, four strikeouts and a walk as the Cubs defeated the Kansas City Royals 6-4 on Friday night.

Gausman’s evening didn’t seem as if it would go so smoothly early on. The former Toronto Blue Jay issued a walk to leadoff hitter Carter Jensen and two outs later took a 106.2 mph liner off his right leg. After a quick meeting on the mound, Gausman assured Counsell and the trainer that he was good to go.

“I was just kind of waiting for it to stiffen up, and it never did,” Gausman said. “That’s what you’re worried about, if you lose the mobility in the ankle. Got lucky, it hit me half on my shoe, half on my leg. I’ll take that.”

Two pitches later, he allowed an RBI double to Isaac Collins. It appeared things were going sideways quickly for the new Cubs starter. But Gausman quickly settled down and allowed just two more hits the rest of the way, retiring 19 of the final 21 batters he faced.

“Took me a little bit to kind of get going,” Gausman said. “Just was too quick, too amped up. Trying to pitch great the first couple batters of the game. Kind of gotta let the game come to you.”

Gausman threw 96 pitches, largely sticking to his four-seamer and splitter. Despite the two-pitch mix, he seemed to have the Royals hitters guessing all game. Twelve of his 15 called strikes were on the heater, and 10 of his 14 swings-and-misses came on the split.

“I thought he got the location of the splitter really going,” Counsell said. “It makes sense, that’s a hard pitch to throw. We’ve seen how good Shota (Imanaga) can be with it. When that pitch is right, it’s just such a difficult pitch for hitters.”

As for the Cubs hitters, they immediately made sure the one-run deficit they faced after the first wouldn’t last long. Chicago put up four runs in the second and tacked on much-needed insurance runs in the seventh and eighth.

Gausman, who faced this offense in June and gave up seven runs, was glad to see them on his side this time around.

“For those guys to pick you up right away … it’s a juggernaut of an offense,” Gausman said. “You can see why they give teams fits. It definitely gave me fits when I faced them. Happy to be over here now.”

After Gausman walked off the mound in the seventh, he received an ovation from the large contingent of Cubs fans who made the trek to Kauffman Stadium.

“That was cool,” Gausman said. “Definitely something I wasn’t expecting being on the road. That’s the cool part of being part of such a huge fanbase. They travel well, and they’re excited about this team for good reason.”

The fans are excited because their team is looking as good as ever. They’ve won five straight games since the deadline and have climbed to a season-high 19 games over .500. They’re just 4 1/2 games behind the first-place Milwaukee Brewers, the closest they’ve been since May.

This team has arguably the best offense and defense in baseball and now has added pitchers who could help put them over the edge. Gausman, a veteran who started two World Series games and posted a sub-3.00 ERA in six postseason outings last fall, is exactly the type of player who can be a key to this team making a deep October run.

“I think he’s a huge piece,” catcher Carson Kelly said. “The intensity that he brings, the experience that he has. How to navigate a lineup and continue to take it to them. I think that’s something that’s very valuable for us.”