List of Harness Racing Issues

Qualifying Times

2008-01-16T10:32:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-14T20:38:00.001-08:00

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

2007-11-14T13:02:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-14T12:45:00.001-08:00

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

2007-11-14T09:58:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-14T09:56:00.000-08:00

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.

finding workers

2007-11-14T09:55:00.000-08:00

finding workers

Hobby Horsemen

2007-11-14T09:54:00.000-08:00

Hobby Horseman are becoming a thing of the past. the game is being reduced to "a business bottom line"

Lack of young owners and fans

2007-11-14T09:52:00.000-08:00

Why isn't the game of racing attracting the young people and how can we change that ?

Common Betting Pools

2007-11-14T09:51:00.000-08:00

The homogeneity of gambling by virtue of on-line wagering and common pool betting are presenting significant challenges/threats to the smaller market tracks.


The common pools will give even more leverage to the big hub facilities like
Woodbine.  They're alsready squeezing the little tracks to the limit.
Almost like they're the mob and we're little private shop owners paying for
protection.  Every time our shop looks to be doing better, they increase the
amount of protection coverage.  We never go forward.

As far as on-line gambling.  The various websites are providing reduced
takeout, paying bonuses and giving perks etc.  This increases their payouts.
So the tracks take a double whammy if a guy from Windsor bets on a website
located in the carribean.  The Windsor guy isn't buying a beer, dinner, pop,
whatever.  As well, he has more incentive to stay home because when he hits
what amounts to a $4,000 super at the track, he gets $4,500 at home.

OHHA Fragmentation

2007-11-14T09:47:00.000-08:00

The fragmentation of Ontario Harness Horse Association only serves to weaken the horsemen's lobby, make track negotiations difficult, and reduce the value we recieve from the available benefits packages.  We also need to allow out of province membership.

People have far to great an expectation for OHHA.  Sudbury and Ottawa fell off line.  Both tracks are essentially buying
race dates.  Sudbury horsemen had to pay the track to qualify. They were
paying the track $25,000 per race card to hold the races out of their purse
account.  In Ottawa, they are only taking 25% of the handle for the extra
race dates.  From previous figures, in about 5 years the horsemen will have
given up about $8 million total(what I was told..didn't check the math).
OHHA should be a voice for the horsemen to those in power.

Racing equipment safety

2007-11-14T09:42:00.000-08:00

There needs to be a way to insure all on track participants are safe.  Race Bikes need to be decommissioned after a certain reasonable life span as should harness.

I had a bike collapse at the head of the lane in 2004.  Was going to win
too.  I watched Chris Johnson driving a trotter by the trail 2 weeks ago at
Hiawatha when a line broke behind the starting gate.  I watched Al Cullen
drive a horse with a rubber bit that broke in two...pretty scary.  Its bad
for the betting public to witness and potentially very costly to everyone if
a few horses go down.

Contracts Among Racing Partners

2007-11-14T09:32:00.000-08:00

The contract between the horsemen, OLGC, and the racetracks.

There is nothing legislated that insures we continue to reap the slot bonanza,
nothing that forces tracks to put their slots money toward their racing operations, nothing to guarantee a minimum number of live race dates.

Judge Accountability

2007-11-14T09:31:00.000-08:00

Having the judges run by the same system as process which involves independent outsiders monitoring their decision as in } Having an unbiased retired Judge from Federal or Provincial court that has no  gain monitoring the decisions made by orc , woodbine ect where the horseman can complain and get something done about it.

Claims kept quiet

2007-11-14T09:30:00.001-08:00

No claims should be announced until the race has actually Physically started

remove claiming rule

2007-11-14T09:28:00.000-08:00

Remove the claiming rule. I should be able to take a $50K claimer that i claimed last week and shove it into $5K claimer if i choose. What if i claim a horse and he is gone bad because the jockey gutted him ?

Welcome to my List of Issues

2007-11-14T09:05:00.000-08:00

My intention with this "List of Racing Issues" blog is to collect issues within the horse racing industry - anything at all that can be improved should be included.

The issues can be discussed, debated, clarified, and simplified online by posting comments to the original issue and everything will be kept in the comment log as history so please don't post rude comments. This will allow us all to better understand the issues that the racing industry faces WITHOUT the added pressure of trying to fix them.

Later when some change is being considered, we can point back to this list and say "it fixes that, that, that, and that" (referring to items on our list of issues). Each issue will have a discussion log (history) so we won't need to rehash the details over and over again - it'll be there in the blog.

So if you have an issue (again ANY ISSUE AT ALL) describe it in an email to MaurieDanko@gmail.com and i'll post it in this blog for others to add comments to. Please tell your friends about this effort and lets generate some interesting content.

Thanks MaurieDanko@gmail.com