Roth Regatta

Watching the trotters or pacers is a long-standing American tradition. After all, the Standardbred is called America’s horse. It was used to pull wagons and get people around almost from the time the first settlers came to this country from Europe. But, today, the Standardbred has a new job: providing the thrills of harness racing.

Some say that harness racing is much easier to bet on, because the horses run more true to form. In other words, the horse that looks like it should win, does win.

That may be true most of the time, but sometimes, longshots still come in or horses that should win don’t seem to put forth very much effort.

That’s when the crowd starts to mutter that the drivers are throwing the race and letting someone win, because they’ve all bet on him, instead of on the favorite. Have you ever seen this happen? I have, but I couldn’t say for certain that the driver was trying not to win. Things happen.

One thing I do know is that – at many harness tracks – just abou

t all of the drivers are trying as hard as they can to win, because of the increased purse money. Why are the purses bigger? In a word: casinos. Many track have been bought out by casinos or, in some cases, the casinos have gotten state approval by subsidizing the state’s harness industry with purses and improvements to the track facilities.

This has happened in Maine and also in other states. Horse owners are happy to have casinos down the road, if it will put a new roof on the barn, raise th

e purses substantially and attract people who might bet on the ponies while they’re at the casino complex.

Is this good for harness racing? The jury is still out on that. One thing that HAS resulted from this though, is what I said about drivers being less willing to throw races. Who in their right mind would risk a large purse by pulling something crooked. It was much different when the purses were smaller.

So, yes, there probably is still some rannygazoo once in awhile. People are human and when there’s big money involved, you always have someone who thinks they can pull a fast one. But on the whole, I think the harness races are a lot cleaner than they were just a few years ago.