Jockeys should be free to wear all the ads they want. So should horses. The Kentucky Derby needs to go the way of NASCAR.
For a sport that could use the money, there's plenty to be made selling space on the silks of the riders and the flanks of their steeds.
If it doesn't seem too silly to make a race car look like a box of Tide, why not tattoo a horse brightly with corporate logos and turn it into a galloping billboard?
Someday the race could become the "Enzyte Kentucky Derby."
The fight against crass commercialism in sports was lost long ago. If there's an extra buck out there, everyone wants a share. NASCAR turned that into a folk art form. Horse racing is still learning.
A Kentucky state rule restricts the noble pursuit of free enterprise by jockeys at the Derby, banning advertising, promotional or cartoon symbols during the race. Not even Mickey Mouse could hitch a ride in America's great horse race.
That prompted a group of industrious jockeys to challenge the rule, citing the First Amendment, and two of them hinted they might not ride in Saturday's Derby if they lost the case.
No worry about that now. The jockeys won by several lengths Thursday when U.S. District Judge John Heyburn II said they could wear advertising patches and, as a result of a second lawsuit, their Jockeys' Guild logo.
The ruling applied only to the jockeys who sued, including Jerry Bailey, Alex Solis, Jose Santos and John Velazquez. But the Kentucky Horse Racing Authority, which fought the lawsuit, said it would allow all jockeys to wear ads.
Attorneys for the KHRA argued that letting jockeys wear ads could lead to corruption. Sure, like the corrupting diversion of revenues into the jockeys' pockets.
Instead of engaging in this cockeyed squabble and threatening to escort ad-bedecked jockeys off the racetrack, the KHRA should have been devoting time to squeezing every cent out of its premier race.
That's what sports are all about these days. Not that everyone has to like it.
Is anyone else weary of seeing Enzyte's Smiling Bob grinning goofily every day on ESPN? Anyone else fed up with the endless commercials for Viagra, Levitra and Cialis in sports events?
It's weird how the sports world has been invaded by male "enhancement" and sexual performance ads. Are so many sports fans that insecure or impotent to justify the barrage? The companies must think so.
Viagra even has its own NASCAR team.
Probably none of those products would sell well on the side of a gelding, but it's not difficult to envision the array of messages the other colts could carry.
The jockeys issued a statement after the ruling, saying the ads would be tasteful.
"We are very sensitive to the traditions of our sport and our goal is not to offend anyone," said Bailey, a two-time Derby winner who will ride Wimbledon on Saturday.
What's tasteful and what's not depends on the point of view. If it sells products, advertisers consider it better than tasteful: It's effective.
"I guess you can bet money on a horse but you can't paint 'Schwan's' on the side of one ... well, on the jockey or whatever," said NASCAR's Ken Schrader, who drives the No. 49 Schwan's Home Service Dodge. "Doesn't make a whole lot of sense. ... I figure the more corporate sponsorship others turn down is more sports marketing available to the rest of us."
Churchill Downs, itself, is hardly a commercial-free zone.
"There's commercialism all over the racetrack," Heyburn noted prior to his ruling. "You can't have one regulation because you're a jockey and one regulation" for a track.
Why even bother?
It's a relatively piddling amount now. Bailey and Shane Sellers, who will be aboard The Cliff's Edge, say sponsors offered them up to $30,000 to wear logos during the race.
In time there could be hundreds of thousands of dollars riding on the backs of colts.
Boxers wear stenciled ads. Why not horses?
If the KHRA is worried, other states are not. New York, California and Florida let jockeys wear ads and their guild patch.
Nor is Churchill Downs particularly concerned -- as long as the logos don't conflict with sponsors already on the property.
"I don't believe it will cheapen the event, as long as the parameters are defined and followed," Churchill Downs president Steve Sexton said. "We can make it work. We don't want it becoming too much, and that's discretionary. But we'll be reasonable."
What's too much? What's too cheap? What's offensive? The boundaries keep shifting.
Is it too much if Dale Earnhardt Jr. covers every inch of his body and car with ads? His fans don't mind.
Baseball and football fans have long accepted that stadiums, even those built with the help of public funds, sell naming rights to insurance and telecommunications companies. The names always sound ridiculous at first, like Safeco Field, then people get used to them.
One day, perhaps, the New York Yankees may morph into the IBM Yankees, ballplayers will decorate their uniforms with soft drink brands, and the Exxon Cowboys might win the General Motors Super Bowl.
The quaint scrap between the horse racing powers in Kentucky and the jockeys will be long forgotten.