The retirement of Preakness and Belmont Stakes winner Afleet Alex is another bitter pill for horse racing to swallow. The too-brief careers of star horses play a key role in keeping horse racing out of the mainstream media.

It is champion racehorses that get the sport headlines, and gambling that keeps us on the agate page.

Trainer Tim Ritchey said the wear and tear of four tough races (Arkansas Derby, Kentucky Derby, Preakness, Belmont) in eight weeks took its toll on Afleet Alex. I don't doubt that.

The three Triple Crown races themselves are shoehorned into five weeks. To see how antiquated that is look at top trainers such as Bobby Frankel, Richard Mandella or Bill Mott. They will space four to six weeks between starts for their best stakes horses.

Point to the Triple Crown campaign for turning the futures of dozens of potential star horses into dust each spring. For every Smarty Jones or Afleet Alex, there are dozens of talented colts that get hurt each year chasing the dream.

Traditionalists will shrug their shoulders and say, "It's part of the game." I'm not so sure. We need to keep our horses sound and on the racetrack, and it'll take more than the status quo to do that.

Every major sport has done studies and made changes to improve their product. Whether it was for the fans, the players or the sport itself, things were changed to make them better and safer.

Horse racing doesn't have a league and never will. But industry leaders have shrugged their shoulders long enough to start looking like Quasimodo.

j TOURNAMENTS -- For those able to sign up for the TVG Network, there's a handicapping tournament Saturday with three seats at stake for the National Handicapping Championship. Go to ntra.com or tvg.com for details. The NHC is scheduled for Jan. 27-28 at Bally's.

If you're going to Hollywood Park on Sunday, there's a free on-track $5,000 handicapping contest. Go to hollywoodpark.com for details.

And locally you can still qualify for the Horseplayer World Series at The Orleans on Jan. 19-21. A contest on the last five races at Hawthorne on Wednesdays and Thursdays is available inside the race books at The Orleans, Gold Coast, Suncoast and Barbary Coast.

Richard Eng's horse racing column is published Friday. He can be reached at rich_eng@hotmail.com.