A Successful Trip to The Meadows

Danny and I are back from Steel City and luckily for us, our trip to watch In Over My Head in his first stakes action of the season was well worth it. It has been months since I got a chance to see him race in person and I kind of forgot just how nervous I get at the track. It is nearly crippling. In a goofy way, though, that is exactly why it is fun to own a horse. Danny was doing better than I was, but I think my negative nervousness ended up bring him down just before post time. We can laugh about it now, though. Our horse performed admirably.

We got in at about 11am after an early morning flight and immediately went to the Meadows track, or what used to be the Meadows track. It is now a track/ casino and I have to say, the facility is a perfect example of what a racing venue should look like in the 2000s and beyond. Gone are the massive grandstands. They simply aren’t needed anymore. With off track betting, internet betting, video replays, on track patrons just don’t flock like they used to. They have nice seating outside, a large apron, seating inside with views of the track from numerous dining areas (from a food court to a higher end restaurant). The casino blends nicely into the race area and the first level also includes a Vegas style off track better area. The casino has multiple bars with lounge acts at night. It not just a track. Not just a casino, but a blended entertainment facility. It is clean, bright and welcoming. If Illinois could stop arguing and put a facility like that at Maywood Park, the results would be off the charts. I digress. Back to the trip.

I put a call into our trainer, John Butenschoen, when we got there to ask what barn he was in so we could come up and see the horse, but he wasn’t at the track yet. He was broke down on the side of the road. He was riding in with another trainer and they had a trailer full of horses, including our Mo. That was not exactly what I expected to hear. As it turned out, a third trainer John knew was nice enough to stop on the side of the road. He had room for one more horse in his truck and since Mo was in the back of the trailer attached to the broken down rig, so he got to go. John’s wife Jackie got the nerve wrecking job of leading a racehorse from one trailer to another on the side of the interstate as cars and semis flew by at 70 mph. She got him in the other trailer and when I called her shortly thereafter, she and Mo had just arrived at the track. Problem diverted. At least for us.

I’m not real proud of where my mind when next, but I guess I’ll chalk it up to human nature and I think Danny will agree he was in the same boat. In the trailer, still stuck on the side of the road was a horse named Upfront Hoosierboy. Hoosierboy was in our race and was the favorite to win. I’m sure you can guess where I’m going with this. Our number one competitor might just end up spending the day on the side of the road and could possibly miss the race. What a selfish thought, but we joked about it possibly happening. Well, Hoosierboy ended up making it well before race time and we were taught a bit of a lesson.

I’m not sure if this trip was just chalk full of omens or I was just overly perceptive, but as we walked out of the casino to head over to the barn to see Jackie and the colt, Over My Head from the Frey was playing over the casino speakers. That song has nothing to do with horses, horse racing or trips to Pittsburgh and I’m not saying it was any kind of omen, but just saying I heard it and the precise time we were walking over to see our horse who shares a similar name. That’s all.

We got back over to the barn to get our first look at the horse we had not seen since buying him at the Meadowlands sale four and a half months before. Boy, that colt looked good. He really wasn’t any larger from a height perspective (maybe a little), but he had really filled out. Looked much stronger, fuller and well balanced. He personality was also a little different. When I saw him previously, he was pretty calm, but he had matured into an aggressively playful young colt. He spent the next 15 minutes trying to bite Danny and I as we caught up with Jackie. That is another reason I like going to the track. It is always fun to see John and Jackie and catch up.

It was time for lunch and after driving around for about 10 minutes, Danny spotted a Chinese buffet and we agreed a big lunch of sauced up deep fried food would be a great idea. The buffet was pretty much as you’d expect it, but the end was a little more than interesting. As our two fortune cookies sat wrapped on the table, Danny said, ‘here it is Shawn, time to get our fortunes.’ Given the fact we had traveled as far as we did and we were about 6 hours to race time, the fortune held much more meaning than a usually trip to eat chicken and broccoli. Danny opened his up first and the fortune was, well, interesting. It said, ‘don’t gain happiness from other people’s sorrow.’ Upfront Hoosierboy was stuck in a trailer on the highway as our horse happily ate lunch in his stall and we were thinking that might help us get into the winners circle. Kind of eye opening, don’t you think? I then grabbed my cookie and snapped it open. ‘Get in your car and go home, nothing good will happen to you here.’ Just kidding, but that’s what I told Danny it said. I then actually read it and got a bit of a chill. ‘Chances are present to make huge personal gains.’

The time between lunch and the race is kind of a blur. We went back to see Mo one more time. Played a few slots. Had a brew or two and before you knew it, the races were on. We were in the 8th race and I swear that the first seven races went by in about 10 minutes. Danny and I found our spot on the rail and watched the horses in our race parade out. Mo looked good on the track. He was being driving by Doug Snyder, who we didn’t know much about and weren’t sure how he would do. Any concerns we had were quickly forgotten once the race started. As we watched him go by again in the warmup, the nervousness was crippling. We used the tension to crack jokes about the race. I was hoping that Mo would finish. Danny thought I was being too negative. We leaned over the rail as if the tension was causing us to lose our lunch. Watching a race on TV is tense. Being at the track adds a multiplier. This was his first big test since it his time off. Was In Over My Head as good as we thought he was? Would he rise to the occasion or crumble under the weight of increased competition he was facing? In addition, a $42,250 purse is no joke. Snagging a chunk of that would go a long way towards paying for his summer racing and maybe even getting to the point of playing with house money so to speak.

After all of this buildup, the race was, quite frankly, kind of melodramatic. Snyder masterfully took Mo off the gate and to the front in the blink of an eye. After holding the lead for just a short time, the aforementioned Upfront Hooiserboy (now bet down to a heavy favorite) took the lead. Danny and I looked at each other with guarded excitement. We had the two-hole trip and all we had to do was play follow the leader and a big chunk of that purse would be ours. The second favorite, Big Ten Champ, moved on the leader between the half and three quarter mark, but as they turned for home, Hoosierboy began to pull away from his first over challenger and Mo was happy to keep on following closely. The stretch run was simple. Hoosierboy went on for the win by about 2 lengths. We took 2nd, clear of the 3rd place horse by about 2 more lengths. In Over My Head raced great and proved he belonged in this class of stakes colts. In only his second start, he went an even faster mile (1.52.4). We have the horse that we had hoped we would when we bought him that brisk January day nearly four and a half months before.

After a good race, it is time to get on the cell phone and start calling everyone who was waiting on the report. I started with my brother, as I always do. Actually, Kirk is really one of the only people I will call whether I goes good or bad. He knows the game better than I do and always has a good piece of advice or shares his congratulations. Then Mom and Dad and Laura. The calls are a lot of fun. Danny and I then headed over to the paddock to see our buddy. He was probably the only horse in the barn that got the rock star treatment of having his picture taken a dozen or so times. He was much more calm and didn’t try and bite us…guessing he was a little tired. We helped John and Jackie get everything back to the original barn and said our goodbyes. Assuming everything goes as planned, we’ll get to see them again at the end of June when Mo has his next stakes event at their home track of Pocono Downs.

Danny and I celebrated the great race by having a couple of cold beverages and trying to hit the Wheel of Fortune slot machines (it didn’t go too well), but it didn’t matter. We were there for the race and the race had gone great. Sometimes a normal life event can teach you a new lesson, or in this case, remind you of one you already knew. Now, I’m not saying that those slips of paper in those cookies were anything more than coincidence. However, it was a little eerie if you ask me. Don’t gain happiness from other people’s sorrow. Had Hoosierboy been stuck on that highway longer, we may have won, but it wouldn’t have been right. The right horse did win that night and we were a game 2nd. Two fortunes were fulfilled that night.

Sire Series Leg 1 Draw

It is amazing just how nerve-wrecking this can be and the nerves don't just kick in for the actual race. Today was a good example of that. At 9am this morning, they drew for the fields in the 1st leg of the Pennsylvania Sire Series to be held at The Meadows racetrack near Pittsburgh this Thursday. They way they do it in the series is to draw even groups of horses. So, if 48 horses enter, you end up with 6 divisional races with 8 horses in each. As you could imagine, there can be a rather large difference in talent depending on where you draw.

There are a number of horses in this event with gaudy winning marks and eye popping earnings on the year including:

- Johnny Z: $176,000 in earnings
- Rusty's All In: $99,000
- Artists Rally: $90,000
- Dan Carter: $50,000 and a mark of 1.50.3

So back to the draw. It was completed with morning starting at about 9am and then it is a waiting game to see when it gets posted on the ustrotting.com website. I went into the 'entries' section and kept hitting refresh until it finally came up at about 1pm. I had a rock in my gut and slowing scrolled down revealing one division after another. When I got to the 8th race, I saw our colt nicely situation in the #5 post position and all of the big names above were not going to be joining him in Thursdays race. Whew.

At the end of the day, you never want to be in over your head (pun intended). You want to ‘fit’ the group you are racing against. That doesn’t mean you will win, but it simply means that if you are feeling right, you can complete. At first glace, I think Mo can compete with this group. This group is not easy (no PASS event ever will be), but again, I think he can compete. That’s all an owner can ask.

Race One Goes as Planned

Mo is officially back. Last night he made his first start at Pocono Downs in a Non Winners of 3 to 5 races lifetime. You know the old saying that ‘perception is reality’? Well, my perception of what this race would be like wasn’t really reality. I kind of expected Mo to fall into a relatively soft field and have a legitimate chance to win even coming off this long layoff. That wasn’t the reality, but now that I look back at it a day removed, that’s just fine.

The field he faced was actually chalk full of talent. The #1 horse, Mobile, won $110,000 as a 2 year old and like us was making his second charted race off of a layoff (he was off a month). The #2 horse, My Old Friend John, won $124,000 as a 2 year old and made a run at the Berry’s Creek stake a couple weeks back. He didn’t make the final after finishing 6th in his elimination race, but only got beat by 2 lengths. The #7 horse, Precious Medal, took in $98,000 as a 2 year old and was coming off two fast qualifiers as compared to Mo’s single qualifier. Toss in a hot 5 year old (Nuclear Joe Joe) coming off two straight 1.51.1 miles and you have the makings of a stakes race. Not an easy task for Mr. Mo off that long layoff.

In the end our driver, Joe Pavia Jr., did what was best for Mo: he took him to the back and raced him up easy before urging him to turn it on in the stretch. I have to be honest, though, it was kind of hard to watch him sit back like that. The in race emotion was ‘why is he so content to just sit back?’, but upon further review, there was no other way to do it. Mo needed this race to get tight and he did. After closing with the fastest last quarter of the bunch in 27.4, he flew at the leaders and took 4th, only getting beat by 2 and ½ lengths. A longer stretch and he probably would have caught one or two more, but in the long run, that really doesn’t matter. He dropped 2 more seconds off his qualifying time to pace in 1.53.1. That’s a nice first mile on that track.

Now things start to get really exciting. We’ll be entering Mr. Mo in the first leg of the Pennsylvania Sire Series next Thursday at the Meadows Racetrack near Pittsburgh. It will be a tough race, but will go for good money and after last night, I really feel Mo is ready. He will likely be facing much of the same types of horses as Mobile, My Old Friend John and Precious Medal (and potentially will actually see them). What’s more, Danny and I are flying out to cheer him on! It has been a long time since we’ve seen the colt. We will make sure to get some new pictures to put up on the site. Stay tuned, the draw is on Monday and after our perpetual outside post positions, we are due for a good one.

Qualifying Day

Eighty nine days ago (from when I first typed this), In Over My Head came out of the 10 hole in the $82,500 Junior Trendsetter Final at the Meadowlands. He gunned to the front, held the lead past the half and gutted out a 3rd place finish at 85-1 odds. Then we quit with him. It was a decision that was difficult, yet very simple. He never had a big break between his 2 and 3 year old seasons. He was relatively slow to mature as compared to some of his contemporaries. He needed more time and we just hoped it would pay off in the long run.

Will it pay off? Well, we just don’t know yet, but today was a step in the right direction. After getting the reports of some nice training miles, he took to the track at Pocono Downs in a qualifier this morning. John Butenschoen acted as a player/ coach (in horse racing terms, the driver/ trainer) and the results were great. He won in 1.55.1 (which is a new lifetime win mark for him) by open lengths. Sounds like he went easy on him in the stretch as he had proven all he needed to this day.

The race occurred this morning at about 10:30 and wouldn’t you know it, I had a big meeting starting at 10:00 am. It was so important that I never once thought about how the colt was doing…OK, that’s a lie, I thought about it a couple of times. Once I got back to the office, I saw the calls from John and Danny…had to be good, I thought and after barreling to my computer and pulling up ustrotting.com, I realized it was.
So what’s next? Finally time to race again! Taking a page from the book of every coach who ever lived, you need to take things one game (or race) at a time. You know where you hope to go, but can’t look ahead too much. At least we are off to a good start.

It’s All In the Stars

I actually took some time this weekend to watch a little bit of the NBA playoffs. Now, I’m a huge basketball guy, but an average fan of the NBA (at best). Too long of a season, guarantied contracts make too many players lazy and the court is too small for these mammoth athletes (how about that one??? Think about it, the court for a 5th grade girls game is the same width as an NBA game…no wonder they stall in the half court). Anyway, despite everyone’s constant bashing of the NBA, it is a popular league and one thing they do better than almost everyone is the promotion of their stars. This point was driven home with the 500,000th shot of Kevin Garnett sitting on the sidelines in a suit, scowling at opposing players and trying to blind them by bouncing a run away stadium laser light off his boulder sized diamond ear ring. The guy isn’t even on the court and he is a focus. Why? Because the NBA promotes their stars no matter what.

Flash back to a blog post a couple of weeks ago in which I was talking about the need for racing to have aged horses racing for multiple years. I truly believe that is a NEED of racing in order to gain the public’s interest. No one outside of the tight racing community will have a clue who Somebeachsomewhere is by the end of this year (heck, they may have forgot about him already) and like I have said, he is a legit SUPERSTAR. Pardon my bluntness, but he is a worthless superstar in the breeding shed from a promotional perspective. No one knows about him and no one cares. Horses can start breeding at 6 or 7 just as easily, but as his owner stated, they need a reason to keep racing. What better reason that money and fame? Certainly seems to keep Mr. Favre interested in playing football.

Everyone can agree on one thing: racing need to market and promote much better. The question is how and with who? I really believe that these efforts need to be focused. You simply can’t promote ALL of it. You can’t cover every age, every gait, every race from a conditioned claimer on up to the Hambeltonian. It is literally impossible. I’ve always thought if you focus your promotion on the best of the best, the rising tide will lift all boats…including $2,000 claiming races at a small track.

Which brings us back to the loosely described idea I had a in a blog entry a couple of weeks back. An annual series that focuses on the aged pacers in harness racing (as a side note, trotters should also be considered, but it is important not to bite off too much at once). Aged pacers offer as the most marketable for a number of reasons including name recognition, durability (compared to younger horses) and anohter is consistency. The problem with focusing on the Hambeltonian or any younger horse race (especially trotters) is the general public have no idea what a break is, what it means or why it is happening. They think the horse is hurt, drivers are stiffing the public or it just ruins the race. The less breaking, the better.

I’ve recently been reading a number of well known horsemen describe a 5% or 10% solution in which a certain percentage of purses will be skimmed by the USTA and used to market the sport. That same solution should be used for this plan. The promotion and marketing needs to be FOCUSED and the series I’m about to describe is prefect for that. If you can identify with aged pacers, other ages and gaits will also benefit. Think of Nascar. They focus on the Sprint Cup series, but because of the success of that, the Nationwide series benefits, the truck series benefits and on down the line.

In a bullet point summary, here are the high points of a potential Harness Racing Series:

-A twelve race season with one race in May, two races in June, July, August, September and October. The final race will be in November. This represents enough races that a horse could miss (due to injury or other commitments) and not ruin the entire season. Also, twelve races over the course of six months is not overly grueling.
- Track schedule would obviously have to be negotiated, but in a general sense, the following tracks could be used in some sort of order: The Meadowlands, Yonkers, Pocono Downs, The Meadows, Chester Downs, Deleware (LJB track), Hoosier (or Indianapolis Downs), Balmoral Park, Springfield, Lexington, Dover and it could end at The Meadowlands again.
- Events in similar regions would be clustered together to avoid access shipping.
- Each event would have up to four separate divisions, drawn at random, meaning a maximum of 40 horses could compete on a given event. If more than 40 enter, ties are broken by series earnings first and lifetime earnings second.
- Each event would either race for $800,000 or $400,000, so if there are four divisions, individual races would go for either $200,000 or $100,000.
- 100 points are also awarded in each race in the following breakdown (from winner to last in a 10 horse field): 33, 22, 15, 10, 7, 4, 3, 1, 1, 1
- The first nine races would set up the final three. In the final three races, horses ranked 1-10 will compete together in the AAAA division finals. Horses ranked 11-20 will compete in the AAA division final, horses ranked 21-30 in the AA and horses ranked 31-40 in the A division final.
- These fields do not change unless of an injury or another reason a horse is pulled out. In which case, the horse with the next highest point total will get moved up one division (AAA to AAAA, AA to AAA and so on).
- Purses for the final three weeks are as follows:
AAAA: $500,000 per race
AAA: $200,000 per race
AA: $100,000 per race
A: $50,000 per race
-The winner of the AAAA division of the series will receive a $1,000,000 bonus.
-In addition, the winners of each division will receive a trophy (which will be named to build recognition and history over time).

That is how I envision the series in a nutshell. With any idea, there are numerous questions, but I’ll address the obvious one first: where is all the money coming from? Under this scenario, you would need $10.75 million in purse money to cover all the races and bonus. Here is where the 5% solution comes in.

In 2008, the top 50 two year old and three year old pacers earned a combined $36,860,000. Taking 5% of that purse money equates to $1,843,000. Again, that is just the top 50 two year olds and top 50 three year olds. It does not apply to aged races, claiming races and so on. The 5% solution could apply to more than just those horses. However, I believe it should have a floor, meaning that it should not apply to purses checks below a certain amount (say $10,000).

Additional revenues could come from starting fees (if it were just $500 per race with 40 starters and 12 races, that is another $240,000). A portion of the purse money could be offset from track handle as well. I would venture to guess that these races would be very well bet given the constant racing, balanced fields and marketing efforts.

There must be a lot more to make this series successful, including incredibly stringent testing and massive penalties for violators, limitless amounts of marketing opportunities (on the silks, on the bikes, on the numbers, on the track, you really can’t rule anything out) as well as gimmicks (driver helmet cameras, build up of rivalries between horses, trainers, drivers and owners, fantasy horse racing and on and on). I will continue to lay out more ideas over time. I really believe that something like this is what is necessary to draw new attention to harness racing. I’m not sure if anyone will agree or even hear about this, but feel free to pass this on to anyone who might be interested.

In other news, Mr. Mo will qualify this week on Thursday and I can't even talk about it. Just too nervous. Sounds like he has been doing his work well for John Butenschoen and should be ready to go. We are so hopeful, but you can't put the cart before the horse (literally and figuratively). We will have an update on Friday.

Berry's Creek

The first big three year old race of the year, the Berry’s Creek, will be raced on Saturday night at the Meadowlands. This is the twentieth installment of the event that has always been raced at the Meadowlands. Its name comes from the actual Berry’s Creek, a tributary of the Hackensack River, which runs just west of the Meadowlands.

The first ever Berry’s Creek (in 1989) was won by Fiorello Blue Chip, a Precious Fella colt out of a Steady Star mare. Fiorello Blue Chip went on to win $740,000 in 95 career starts. The Berry’s Creek purse in 1989 was $309,250 (interestingly higher than this year’s purse of $230,000) and the score of $154,625 equated to 21% of Fiorello Blue Chip’s total lifetime earnings. Not bad for one night at the Big M.

The first major ‘star’ to win the Berry’s Creek was arguably Cam’s Card Shark. CCS earned $2,500,000 in just 30 lifetime starts. His winning time in 1994 was 1.51.0, the second fastest in the then short history of the race, second only to Vine Street’s 1.50.2 victory the year prior. Vine Street’s win that night increased the colt’s earnings by $175,000, but didn’t propel him to greatness like CCS as it represented nearly 50% of his lifetime earnings of $356,000. One thing those two colts did have in common was their driver, John Campbell, who has won the Berry’s Creek a record five times.

The morning line favorite this year is River Shark, a colt out of Four Starzzz Shark who is beginning to round into form as a top 3 year old. He was only a $9,000 purchase at the 2007 Lexington Select Yearling sale. The fun thing about going to those sales is looking back and seeing if you made any notes or had thoughts about horses. I pulled out my old catalog and took a look at hip number 568. ‘Saw Saturday AM’ I wrote with a rating of 7 and a comment of ‘too slim’. I commend the owners for having more insight than I did!

There are a couple of horses in this race that our own In Over My Head took on earlier in the year, including the second favorite Hypnotic Blue Chip. He took some time off in late winter/ early spring and in his first race back he won his elimination to the Berry’s Creek in 1.51.2. In my opinion, Hypnotic Blue Chip doesn’t have to take a back seat to anyone in this field. It will be interesting to see what kind of price he goes off at with the money chasing the River Shark entry.

In other news, Mr. Mo is getting close to qualifying to re-start his 3 year old season. He is training down with John Butenschoen at Pocono and hope to get a qualifier and a start in by the end of May. It’s getting close and I can’t wait!

The Marketing Miss

(a deviation of the life and times of In Over My Head, aka, Mo)

Even though the Kentucky Derby is not a harness event, I've always thought it is the unofficial, official start to the racing season. Much like the Masters is to golf. With that in mind, I wanted to share some thoughts on racing and promotion in general.

Imagine you are a promoter. You need to generate buzz for a big race that will get national exposure on a national TV station. Imagine you had the following to work with:

A Middle Eastern millionaire (or more) with endless resources shipping over his best two colts to take on the Americans.
A hall of fame trainer in Bob Baffert bringing in the best horse from California.
A former school teacher with a one horse ‘stable’
A cowboy from New Mexico who drove his $9,800 horse all the way to Kentucky himself.

The thing is, you don’t need to imagine anything. Those were just a few of the actual storylines that we had in the Kentucky Derby this year.

Just think of what Vince McMahn (of WWF/ WWE fame) could do with storylines like that? It is so good it almost sounds made up…but it isn’t! I’m a horse racing guy and I didn’t know half those stories until AFTER the race. You mean to tell me I have to watch 75,000 commercials for ‘Frank TV’ and endless other meaningless sitcoms and reality TV shows and you can’t throw a handful of commercials promoting these storylines during the Bulls vs. Celtics series? These are REAL people with real horses and putting real money on the line. No wonder racing is ‘dying’. No one creates any buzz. I’m sick of the ‘woe is me’ attitude attached to racing. ‘Our time has past.’ ‘It isn’t what is used to be.’ ‘No one cares anymore about horse racing’. You know recently, Jeb Bush (and I’m not getting into politics by the way) came out and said it was time for the Republican party to stop the aging love affair with the way things were under Ronald Regan. They were great times for that party. The key word is ‘were’. Its over. Time to move on. Racing needs to take the bull by the horns and move on too and save itself.

So why don’t they do it? Why don’t TV stations and media outlets dump money into promoting great animals and great stories. I have one theory. If Lebron James planned to come into the NBA, play one season and retire, do you think he would get the pub he gets? Do you think the NBA would be a popular as it is if players turned over year after year? No, is the answer to that question. Why sink time and effort into promoting a 3 year old horse who is more than likely going to head off to the stud barn within 12 months? They are gone before anyone gets to know them. With that in mind, it is time for a paradigm shift in the way races are conducted. I don’t see Thoroughbred racing changing…they are too set in their ways. This is a chance for harness racing to take the lead.

Aged Horses

Recently, the owners of Somebeachsomewhere, a legitimate superstar in every sense of the word told Standardbred Canada (link: http://www.standardbredcanada.ca/news/4-27-09/macgrath-retiring-beach-financial-decision.html ) that they retired him in part because there isn’t enough money to race for as an aged horse. While one could say that the owners are simply being greedy, the decision is theirs and only theirs at the end of the day. And for many, it is a simple business decision. Taking a horse like that to stud with a $20,000 fee is a sure thing (at least for a couple years). However, I believe that most owners would RATHER race than take their horse to stud barn. There is simply nothing like watching one of your horses race and the thrill of victory is incredible. In my opinion, we will not begin to fix the core issue with racing until such time we begin to offer more big races to horses older than 3. That is where you can build some constancy of big name horses. Rivalries can begin to blossom and that is where you create interest. You need an ‘us vs. them’ mentality to get people really interested. Michigan vs. Ohio State. Yankees vs. Red Sox. Heck, Yankees vs. anyone else. However, the money just isn’t in the aged races right now. Here is a look at all colt and gelding winners of over $500,000 in 2008 (pacers only):

One could argue that Somebeach had a chance to make a ton of money. Mr. Big took in $1,500,000. However, look at his line. Eleven wins in fourteen starts. That’s rather incredible. It is a lot to ask of a horse to have that kind of win percentage.

Digging into the numbers shows that of the top ten earners in 2008, five were 3-year olds, three were 4 + and two were 2-year olds.

So how could the landscape be changed? How could there be a way for aged horses to stay on the track longer? I think one idea would be to create a new division of racing: horses aged 4 through 6. That division could have its own series or ‘Grand Circuit’. They could even piggy back on big weekends where 3-year old events are taking center stage (and could eventually upstage the younger colts). The key would be to set it up in a series with points and standings. Nascar does it. Golf is trying to do the same thing. Have someone be the lead sponsor and entice big time horses to race not only for purse money, but for year end bonuses. If the winner of the annual Ford Truck Harness Series (for example) got to add a million dollar bonus to their accumulated purse money, do you think Somebeach would be retired right now? Maybe, but I’d guess there would be a much better chance he would be racing and that colt is EXACTLY what the sport needs.

This would be one way to try and create some consistency in racing. Let the 2 and 3 year olds do their thing. This new series would be a way for the general public to get to know horses over a number of years. Consistent horses, consistent drivers, consistent trainers and consistent owners. It would be exponentially easier to promote a battle of Mr. Big vs. Somebeach vs. Art Official. How about seeing a number of dream matchups of Donato Hanover vs. Deweycheatemandhow? Do you realize the buzz you could create off of something like that? More media, more advertising dollars and more money spent at the windows. Racing would actually be taking in non casino generated dollars. Now that sounds like a plan in long term viability.

Ratings and attendance

Interestingly enough, the ratings for this year’s Kentucky Derby were the highest in 17 years. This despite the lack of marketing as talked about above. The on track attendance was also a record high. Racing is not dead. It is one life support and only shows its former glory once or twice a year, but it isn’t dead. Again, the Derby is not harness racing, but horses are horses to a certain extent. Use these important numbers as a beacon of hope to keep working toward a better, more sustainable sport.