If Snoop Dogg and Ice Cube can fill the silver screen in a pair of soon-to-be-released PG-rated family movies, it's time for horse racing to go for the pop culture jugular.

My 11-year-old niece's favorite television programs are the World Series of Poker and Celebrity Blackjack, and we recently purchased her a new set of poker chips to be unwrapped on the most-holy day.

Somebody, anybody, grab the kids, pack the mini-van and get to Aqueduct. While you're at it, replace the soccer ball on the cargo door with a Beulah Twins magnet.

If ever a time existed for this lowly, seedy, you'll-lose-your-family's-mortgage industry to take action, it's now. In case you missed the memo: Pop culture digs the unseemly.

The staunch conservativism of the Thoroughbred racing industry powers-that-be roots itself in Middle America and the fancy ball rooms of seven-figure corporate holiday parties. But away from the Blue Grass and the Waldorf lie tens of millions of potential fans to horse racing. Most are too poor to be racehorse owners, sleep in far too late to be trainers, and eat a few-too-many Twinkies to be jockeys.

But they sure as hell can be bettors.

The National Thoroughbred Racing Association wrongfully disconnected itself with the unseemly early on in its marketing history. The organization's initial 1998 ad campaign featured a wired-out, punked-up Lori Petty dancing down the Santa Anita track apron and screaming like someone took her last hit of Ecstasy. Conservatives within the game shrieked.

Soon, Petty was gone – but more than six years later her catch-phrase "Pay the lady; pay the lady; pay the lady" still can be heard by racetrack regulars. I can personally vouch for the campaign's impact when, in the fall of 1998 at an off-track betting parlor I worked at in small-town Pennsylvania, a man in his 60s (in a wheelchair, no less) stuck out both hands after cashing a winning bet and exclaimed "Pay the lady; pay the lady; pay the lady". Truth is, "Pay the lady" was an ad-lib phrase that Petty herself threw in – not something created by the tens of millions of dollars the racing industry spent with ad agencies.

Turns out, that unseemly, drugged-out, anorexic connected with the public.

As we approach the New Year, the racing industry sits on a potential gold mine at the doorstep of pop culture. NTRA Productions, in association with ESPN, will produce a World Series of Poker-like television show surrounding the 2005 National Handicapping Championship. Held Jan. 21-22 at Sin City's-own Bally's Las Vegas, the NHC gathers a few hundred of the nation's best handicappers for a $400,000 showdown of wagering wit.

Here's hoping that the show's producers and creators pull no punches. When the show airs Feb. 20 from 5-6 p.m. eastern on ESPN, let's hope that the 10 or 12 most unseemly players are at the head table slugging it out in the nightcap from Sam Houston. Let there be cussing, bad mullets, boob-jobs, red eyes and even a hint of drama. No one roots for a World Series of Poker player in a Polo golf shirt and khakis. Give us the crumb-ball who hasn't washed his hair in two days and sports the bling-bling. Let Kenny Mayne loose to be his sarcastically brilliant self.

Opportunities like this seldom come along. Piggy-backing the white-hot poker craze is not only the right thing for horse racing to do, but it's a chance to one-up a static table game with a more exciting product.

When polling my niece's parents as to why they think it's okay to watch the World Series of Poker, the ultra-conservative, church-going family was at a loss for words, other than saying, "It's cool…and they're playing for so much money, it's exciting to watch." Horse racing needs to focus on the betting jackpots that await its players on a daily basis. If you make the amount of money played for seem "fictional", you'd be surprised how much real money you can generate. Anyone get a lottery ticket in their stocking this holiday season? That's the personification of my point.

The bottom line: Playing a game of chance where you're spending the grocery money in hopes of hitting a $14.60 winner in the sixth from Pimlico is viewed negatively. Going for a $500,000 or $1 million jackpot simply is viewed these days as cool.

If Snoop Dog can go from starring in Hustlaz Diary of a Pimp to being the voice of a bloodhound in the children's movie Racing Stripes, I think America can stomach a $2 superfecta ticket on the fourth from Gulfstream Park.

Jeremy Plonk is the editor of The HorsePlayer Magazine.