Kyle Goon: There’s an obvious strategy to saving the Preakness that no one is talking about. Make it affordable.

I went to an incredible sporting event this weekend — one with a can’t-miss promotion that fans loved, that prominently featured animals, that sold out the hosting venue and filled it with life.

Yes, Hot Dog Day at Nationals Park was a huge success. All over D.C., “It’s a Bad Day to Be a Hot Dog” hats are the hottest fashion statement.

If only the Preakness — held just one day later with much more expensive tickets, with an eighth of the attendance — could hold a candle to it.

Although it may be a little funny, I’m afraid I’m not joking. The Triple Crown experience at Laurel Park was a dud Saturday, and not just because it left familiar pastures at Pimlico for a year.

The dominant characteristic of the 151st Preakness was space. There was a ton of it. If you’ve ever wanted to attend a horse race with plenty of elbow room, short lines to the restroom and one law enforcement officer for every five people, this would have been your dream.

But for the rest of us who have experienced the People’s Race — its best parts and its worst — the clear thing missing was the people. A cap of 4,800 significantly limited the number of resplendent sun hats, seersucker suits and black-eyed Susans sloshing around the grandstands.

Tons of seats have been ripped out of Laurel Park since it was slated to close, but it didn’t matter. Even the ones still standing were not filled.

The only thing at full capacity were the prices. Looking at $220 parking and $22 cocktails, you would have never known this was the off-brand year for the Preakness.

Charging these prices for a fraction of the true race experience was a fitting send-off for the Stronach management tenure of Maryland’s race. May that company steer clear of the Old Line State in the future.

It’s not surprising that fewer seats and higher costs are the trend for the horse racing industry, which constantly cries poverty as its tracks close and its farms get sold. Even as winning trainer Chad Summers feted his horse, Napoleon Solo, for a dominant Preakness win, he bemoaned that Solo is one of the last winners ever in Laurel.

“We can’t allow this to keep happening,” Summers said of track closures across the country.

There is an obvious strategy to try to save horse racing, one that few of the industry leaders seem to be saying out loud.

Make races affordable. Make them accessible. Make packing the grandstands the chief goal, and give a generation of Marylanders a chance to fall in love with racing again.

Of course this is not the trend of the racing industry, or sports at large. As private equity-minded owners take control of our beloved pastimes, their models inevitably center around selling fewer seats for higher costs — milking as much profit as possible at the expense of how far the fans’ dollars go.

It’s happening with the Orioles. It’s happening with the Ravens. It’s happening with youth sports, for goodness sake, so there are no sacred cows exempt from the ruthless capitalistic approach to monetizing the loyalty of fanbases.

But here’s an opportunity for an industry in distress and in decline. Although there is plenty of uncertainty in Maryland’s outlook for racing, if the state maintains management of Pimlico and its signature race, it can attempt to transition the model from exclusivity to affordability.

By making it easier for the casual fan, particularly families, to enjoy a few days of racing, there is a chance — not a guarantee but as good a chance as horse racing has — to bring the charm back to the track.

There was a time when the Preakness was the blue-collar answer to the buttoned-up flair of the Kentucky Derby. I’m not advocating a return to portable toilet races, but packages of cheap infield tickets sure would be nice when the race returns to Baltimore.

What about discounts for residents of Park Heights and other areas of North Baltimore? Embedding racing deeply in this community seems to be the best way forward.

I’m not naive. I understand this is not where the momentum is flowing. Making this suggestion in the face of an industry that seems to be more and more suited to the well-heeled socialite crowd feels a bit like I’m Jerry Maguire, standing in a dumbstruck crowd of onlookers, desperately asking, “Who’s coming with me?”

But it’s racing that should be feeling desperate. It is a chronic drain on the state budget, subsidized to the high heavens and still diminishing by the year. The lifers of this industry ought to remember why they fell in love with the sport and make it more possible for the common man to feel that same thrill.

White tents fenced off with velvet ropes and concessions that can easily cost $100 for a family of four don’t exactly scream of an invitation.

The state of the racing industry is so dire in Maryland I don’t think anyone can guarantee a rescue operation of any kind can save it, much less restore it to what it once was.

But a mostly empty grandstand for the Preakness — on a weekend when locals had much more appealing and affordable options — might be the loudest signal yet that racing will need a shock to its way of doing things if it ever hopes to see a packed house again.