This is meant as a cautionary — perhaps educational — tale to the standardbred industry about where we are today. It is not an article that will offer the same old tired “solutions” or suggestions.
Today is time for us to be honest about the industry’s current status and stop dreaming about what could or should be.
This is also pointed to the 30-45-year-old who likely doesn’t have a full appreciation — or maybe none at all — about what the sport used to look like.
IT USED TO BE THAT:
The current fan/attendee/bettor at the racetrack is not considered anyone special by management. They expect you to continue doing what you do… just don’t die.
But what about the racing people who do care? There are a bunch of us, but we aren’t collectively able to move the bulldozer that is slots/casino/apathy.
Racing is necessary (for casinos to be there) but not cherished. Even an annoyance of sorts. Casinos undergo huge renovations and harness racing fans are looking to where they can get a coffee on a Wednesday afternoon. The collective voices of those of us who want better is no longer drowning out those who are comping the casino regular. If it ever was.
Sometimes the smallest of stories can be the most telling. Let me take you back to 2001 on Meadowlands Pace Night. I was downstairs talking to some friends at the program area and some people I had met within the past couple of years were making their rare trip to the races. When asked who I liked, I told them to bet Real Desire to win the Meadowlands Pace. Good seeing them there.
We go our separate ways. Real Desires edges Bettors Delight and pays $6. I don’t think about it again. A year goes by and I am again downstairs on Pace night. You guessed it, the same couple comes in. But they just tried to cash their ticket from last year and it was too late. Six months I guess was the limit. $30 south. They didn’t even ask who I liked that night. They got their program and were on their way. Never saw them again. Did we lose two customers who innocently didn’t realize they had to cash in their ticket in a specified time? Nobody is at fault here, but any way you look at it, it is not customer friendly. I wish I had done something in retrospect now. Did the sport lose two customers — however light they bet — that night?
Finally, harness racing finds itself to in 2022 as the 450-pound man. The one who desperately wants to get back to 180 pounds. But at least the man has a plan and, in theory anyway, a path there. If he follows this and that and sticks to it, it’s at least a possibility.
Harness racing seems at the point of exasperation, hands in the air, white towel headed to the ring. The sport exists mostly today because they had the deeds to the land. We were here first, type of mentality. An adversarial, not brotherly, relationship exists between the casinos and racing. We can’t attract the sharp, energetic, insightful 18-25-year-old anymore because there is so little for them down the road. Really good people have rerouted. The world goes on around us and it seems there are fewer and fewer of us trying to fend off the tsunami.
How long we can all hang on to the same rope remains to be seen.