SARATOGA SPRINGS — Racing experts speaking at a forum this morning said it is unlikely horse racing tracks will ever again see the high number of visitors they knew in decades past.

Panels of experts from across the nation are meeting at the Gideon Putnam Hotel to discuss several racing-related topics. The one-day event is sponsored by the Government Law Center of Albany Law School.

National Thoroughbred Racing Association President Alex Waldrop said NASCAR, professional wrestling and the National Football League have huge fan bases because the general population has easy access on television to competitions. Teams and franchises are able to draw large amounts of money because they pool broadcast rights and share in the revenues that are generated from events occurring several times a week.

"Our viewership numbers are not sufficient to drive revenues," Waldrop said. "NASCAR may have one big race a week. We have 70,000 races [a year] around the country."

He said most people who attend horse races were first brought to a track by someone who enjoyed the sport and wanted to share the experience.

Steven Crist, publisher of the Daily Racing Form, said he lives about four miles from the Belmont Race Track in New York City, but he rarely attends races in person more than once a week.

"I sit at home in my den with a better TV than I can watch at the track and I have my computer and my dogs and I'm comfortable watching the races," Crist said. "People at 100 tracks around the country have tried getting people back for 25 years. It's not going to happen. The world has changed."

The comments came as the New York Racing Association announced that attendance at the Saratoga Race Course was down for the first two weeks of the season. Attendance is down nearly 17 percent and on-track handle is off by almost 9 percent after the second week of the Saratoga season.

NYRA released figures that track attendance for the first 12 days was 267,895, compared to 321,249 for the same period during the 2007 meet.