If you look closely — beyond the champion trotters and pacers and past the memorable stretch drives — you’ll notice the Crowns are tarnished.
Around the edges, deep in the grooves between the prongs, harness racing’s Triple Crowns are soiled. The gold is turning green. And it’s not the color of money.
What once were the sport’s premier events, the Triple Crowns of pacing and trotting have fallen on hard times. Attendance is down, there is little television coverage, and public interest has waned.
Some owners and trainers blame the decline on the fact that four of the six Triple Crown events are contested on what they feel are antiquated half-mile tracks. Others believe the fault lies in the Crowns’ schedule, which in each case runs from July through October.
Whatever the reason, the deterioration of the pacing and trotting Triple Crowns “hurts the hell out of me,” says Hall of Fame trainer and driver Stanley Dancer, who has won two trotting and one pacing Triple Crown.
“I personally think it’s a damn shame,” said Dancer, who won the last trotting Triple Crown with Super Bowl in 1972. “Thoroughbreds have done a lot more to try and rebuild their Triple Crown than we have.”
While thoroughbred racing’s Triple Crown now sports corporate sponsorship and a $5 million bonus, harness racing’s Triple Crown is still searching for what standardbred owner Lou Guida calls “some 1990 thinking.”
Says John Cashman, president of Pompano Harness Track and The Red Mile, which hosts pacing’s final leg of the Triple Crown in the Kentucky Futurity: “The Triple Crown has lost all its punch.”
— Last year, when Alysheba tried to become the first thoroughbred since 1978 to win the Triple Crown, 64,772 showed up at Belmont Park in Elmont, N.Y. When Mack Lobell last year tried to become the first trotter in 15 years to win a Triple Crown, only 4,647 showed up at The Red Mile in Lexington, Ky.
Except for the Hambletonian and Little Brown Jug, the middle leg of trotting and pacing’s Crowns, respectively, and also the most elusive and prized possessions in harness racing, the Crowns are not drawing crowds.
At Yonkers raceway in Yonkers, N.Y., where the Cane Pace drew crowds of 40,000 in the 1950s and 1960s, a crowd of only 7,187 showed this spring, down 4,649 from 1985.
Tim Rooney, president of Yonkers Raceway, says you can’t measure attendance in New York anymore because, “there were probably another 2,000 at New York’s off-track betting shops.” But even Rooney admits that harness racing’s Crowns “have never been able to grab the imagination of the public like the thoroughbreds.”
A major problem, Rooney said, is the time between races. This year’s Pacing Triple Crown began with the Cane Pace July 3 at Yonkers. But the second leg, the Little Brown Jug at Delaware, Ohio, isn’t until Sept. 22. The Messenger, the final leg, will not be contested until Oct. 8.
The Trotting Triple Crown began July 10 with the Yonkers Trot. After Saturday’s Hambletonian at the Meadowlands, it won’t be until Oct. 7 that the Kentucky Futurity is trotted.
“I have thought in the 17 years that I’ve been at Yonkers that there should be some continuity as far as the spacing of the races,” Rooney said.
Cashman agrees. “If you move the races closer together there’s more of a reason for publicity, for excitement. The public has to learn to identify with the horses. Right now we run the Yonkers Trot in June. By the time the Kentucky Futurity comes along in October, the public has forgotten about the horses.”
Said driver John Campbell, the leading money-winner last year with earnings of more than $10 million: “It’s too long a year to keep the public’s attention. How can you keep them interested through five months? I don’t know what the absolute answer is, but it’s frustrating to see the crowds the thoroughbreds draw and then what we draw.”
A shorter time span between races also would allow trotters and pacers a better shot at winning the Triple Crown, thus generating more excitement for the sport, according to Guida.
“The thoroughbreds’ three Triple Crowns are fairly close together,” said Guida, who owned 1985 Horse of the Year Nihilator and 1987 Horse of the Year Mack Lobell. “Five weeks between races allows a horse in top shape a chance of winning. But it’s very difficult to keep a horse up the period of time they’re asking you to in harness racing.”
Dancer concurred.
“Even the thoroughbred Triple Crown may be a little close together,” Dancer said, “but I would say ours is just as tough because it’s so spread out. Asking a horse to stay tight, fit and sharp from June through October is a lot to ask with all the other races in between.”
— While nearly everyone agrees that the Triple Crowns could benefit from more continuity, not everyone agrees that the races should be moved from half-mile tracks to five-eighths mile tracks.
On one side is tradition, most track officials, and the Hambletonian Society, sponsors of the Hambletonian and the 12 Breeders Crown races. On the other side stands owners, trainers and drivers, who feel that the short distance (approximately 50 yards) from the start of a race on a half-mile track to the first turn is not conducive to everyone having an equal chance to win.
Dancer, who has won the half-mile Cane Pace and Yonkers Trot a total of 10 times, feels it’s time to move on.
“If I had my wishes I’d have less of the half-mile races,” Dancer said. “I think half-mile racing is a thing of the past. I’d like to see two of the Crowns on mile tracks and maybe one on a five-eighths track. You wouldn’t have any more excuses about bad post positions or being stuck inside horses, and it would be a lot easier to keep a horse sound.”
Said Campbell: “Today there’s more emphasis on bigger tracks. More importantly, though, I think it’s fairer to everyone, including the public. So much depends on post position on a half-mile track. If you’re outside, it’s very tough to be competitive.
“Today, you can see owners rethinking what they’re going to do; whether they’re going to race on a half-mile track.”
One of those owners was Guida, who did not enter his 1985 Pacer and Horse of the Year Nihilator in either the Cane or Messenger Stakes, but only in the more prestigious Little Brown Jug. To some inside the industry, Guida’s move was sacrilegious.
“It wasn’t because Nihilator couldn’t handle those tracks,” Guida said. “But with so many other opportunities to race a horse, why risk injury? We raced in the Little Brown Jug because the track is more of a rounded track. But these other half-mile tracks consist of a straight stretch and sharp turns. The turns are so sharp that a horse has to put too much weight on the side he’s leaning because the turns are banked. Horses break down. They get chips.
“I don’t think it’s fair to the public, either. If your horse is locked outside, or stuck on the rail, you can’t win. I really believe that a mile track is a true test of endurance and speed.”
Charles Sylvester, two-time Trainer of the Year and the winner of $1.2 million in Breeders Crown races, says, “If you raced on bigger tracks you’d have more horses going in the races. There wouldn’t be so many missing the Triple Crowns.”
But Hugh A. Grant, president and chief executive officer of the Hambletonian Society, doesn’t understand the sudden problem.
“Half-mile tracks are extremely important to harness racing,” he said. “Most good horses get over a half-mile track. One of the problems is that they’re not training over half-mile tracks anymore. In the old days, a horse would have two or three starts over a half-mile track.”
Cashman and Rooney agree that half-mile racing is important in the Triple Crowns.
“The best horse always wins on a half-mile track,” Rooney said. “Half-mile tracks didn’t stop (the fastest standardbred ever) Niatross. I think it’s just a lot easier for trainers and drivers on a mile track.”
For Cashman, the half-mile debate “kills me.”
“This is b.s.,” he said. “Years ago all the great horses raced on a half- mile track and competed correctly. I think horsemen are asking for an easy way out and are blaming half-mile tracks. I think’s it’s a cop-out on the horsemen’s point of view. They say half-mile tracks don’t give a bettor a fair shake, and the public says it’s easier on mile tracks because with the long lane (stretch) you don’t get boxed in too often, but horsemen have flat-out decided not to race on half-mile tracks anymore.”
— When Roosevelt Raceway, home of the Messenger Stakes, closed three weeks ago, Cashman, the most progressive of race track operators, tried to tighten up the Pacing Triple Crown by offering to run the Messenger at Pompano Oct. 4.
“With the Jug always being Sept. 22, I wrote asking Tim (Rooney) to have the Cane two weeks prior to the Jug; that way the Triple Crown would be held in six weeks,” Cashman said. “But I’m pretty sure that Yonkers will host the Messenger this year.”
In that same letter, Cashman asked Rooney to look into the possibility of a Triple Crown bonus. Rooney doesn’t know if there’s need for a bonus, but Grant says the Hambletonian Society is looking into a bonus and the possibility of corporate sponsorship.
“We have hired the International Management Group as a consultant for looking into sponsorship,” Grant said. “We’ve been working with them for approximately three months, and we’re in the process of gearing up.”
It is doubtful that a major corporation will lend its name to the Triple Crowns without a major television contract. ESPN will televise the Hambletonian this Saturday, and SportsChannel showed the Yonkers Trot earlier this year. But elimination and heat races are always a possibility in harness racing’s Triple Crowns, making it nearly impossible for a network to put together a one hour or half hour show.
The Triple Crowns of harness racing “are still a great honor to win,” Dancer said. “But we have to try and improve on them now. We must begin to rebuild,
because a lot of things need changing.”
TRIPLE CROWNS
Thoroughbred racing attendance for showcase races far exceeds that for harness racing.
Thoroughbreds Place Year Att.
Kentucky Derby Lexington, Ky. 1988 137,694
Preakness Baltimore 1988 81,282
Belmont Stakes Elmont, N.Y. 1988 56,558
Trotters Place Year Att.
Yonkers Trot Yonkers, N.Y. 1988 5,982
Hambletonian East Rutherford, N.J. 1987 32,456
Kentucky Futurity Lexington, Ky. 1987 4,647
Pacers Place Year Att.
Cane Pace Yonkers, N.Y. 1988 7,187
Little Brown Jug Delaware, Ohio 1987 49,876
Messenger Stakes Westbury, N.Y. 1987 5,364
NOTE: Figures are from the most recent running of each event.
