Okay, the headline is a joke, but there’s an underlying theme.

I just read a news story saying that chickens have overtaken horses as the kings of Kentucky agricultural.

What????!!!!! It really is a joke, right? No, I’m afraid not.

Chickens are expected to generate $930 million in Kentucky in 2009, far more than the $750 million generated from Kentucky’s venerable horse industry.

Somewhere, I just know that Col. Sanders is smiling and munching on an extra-crispy chicken leg.

Of course, it’s hardly news to readers of horse racing web sites that the horse economy has taken a real beating in the last two years, but apparently people are still willing to pony up their hard-earned cash for a bucket of carry-out chicken.

Kentucky horse breeders, of course, will seize on this fact to convince legislators that the state needs slot machines at its racetracks. And I think that will happen, but when? If they wait much longer, it may be too long to save the patient.

It’s incomprehensible that Kentucky would allow its signature industry---horses---fail. Travel just about anywhere in the horse world and mention the word “Kentucky” and people get all dreamy-eyed while thinking of the miles and miles of four-board fences.

After all, Prince Edward Island proudly has billed itself as the “Kentucky of Canada” for its long devotion to horses and harness racing.

The Red Mile meet in Lexington each fall is a Mecca for Standardbred devotees from around the world. And there is nothing in American racing to compare to the Kentucky Derby, of course.

The problems in Kentucky’s horse economy aren’t going away soon. Demand for yearlings is softening and many highly-leveraged Thoroughbred operations now have a “For Sale” sign at the front gate. It will take a while to recover.

A Kentucky agricultural economist said that he doesn’t envision horses reclaiming the top spot in sales for several years. Others contend that once the economy rebounds, horses will surge back to the lead. The horse business tends to be more cyclical than poultry production, one expert noted.

Perhaps in a few years, when agricultural revenues are tallied in Kentucky, people won’t have to ask: “Which came first: the chicken or the horse?”