Qualifying Times

I'd like to see the racing industry move to "seconds based" qualifying time standard. A trotter timed 2:05.0 at Georgian Downs remains qualified to race while his nearest rival was timed in 2:05.1 is not and must requalify. Wouldn't it sound better to say 2:04.4 is ok but 2:05 requires requalifying.

I know, its 1/5 of a second either way but to me it just makes more sense and sounds more reasonable to put this arbitrary qualifying time standard JUST BELOW a second based standard (2:05 or 2:02 or whatever) and say "horses must BEAT/EXCEED this standard" to compete.

Of course its not important in the small picture but every little detail adds up to form the big picture.

Breaking Horses

The 1st thing that should enter a driver's mind when his/her horse goes offstride is "how can I avoid messing up the horses behind me". I've experienced this correct reaction consistently at WEG but not at the B tracks. There, the drivers first think "how can I get back onstride without loosing my position" which leads to snatching up the breaking horse and interfering with the horses following behind him. This happens nearly every time and yet the judges NEVER hold the selfish driver accountable for messing up the other horses.

Its wrong, its dangerous and its easy to correct.

The Fair Start

A horse race is officially timed from the start line to the finish line - and yet if a horse breaks before the official start line all those who bet on him are doomed before the race even started. Racing currently has a line, called the "fair start" line, but from experience, i can tell you that when the horse you bet on breaks and is eliminated BEFORE the race is even started ---- it doesn't FEEL like a fair start.

Race Bike Insurance

Once upon a time, the OHHA purchased group insurance against racing sulky damage. New race bikes can cost anywhere from $2,000 to $8,000 and they can be ruined in the blink of an eye. Usually, the accident is caused by some other horse and no fault to the person whose bike is ruined - simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

If we want to encourage participants to upgrade their equipment then we need to provide some sort of investment protection against freak incidents of damage.

Creating Races

I'd like to see an centralized, online system for entering horses into races.

The draw schedules could be co-ordinated across all tracks so that if a horse doesn't draw into one race, he can simply enter the next available suitable race. The entry could be submitted anytime (computers don't keep office hours), we could avoid long distance charges, Bell busy signals, and the general inconvenience of remembering different draw dates and times for different tracks.


Further, we could show how many horses have been entered into each race to encourage full fields.

Too Many Horses

Too many horses around. People need to realize that just because their horse is registered as a "Standardbred", that doesn't mean it has to be a racehorse. Our industry needs to lower the time standards across the board to start weeding out some of the lesser horses that are just "Taking up someone else's spot" per se and are virtually non-competitive.

Take a look at how the dog racers do it... I hear they have a very good system for weeding out non-competitive dogs.

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