Yes, I know that the tabloid TV shows have been “All Tiger – All The Time” in the past month or so, but I’d like to talk about a golfer from my hometown. His name is Jack Nicklaus and he’s pretty fair golfer, too. Of course, he’s past his prime now, but he was a good one years ago.
There was a time when harness racing was very much a part of the culture and lifestyle of Ohioans. It was a popular sport. Growing up in central Ohio, Nicklaus was certainly aware of it and probably went to the races a few times.
When he got out of college and started making real money on the links, Nicklaus became a harness horse owner. This was probably when I was in grade school or junior high, but I’d always heard that he fell in with a bad trainer who shafted him. Nicklaus got a bad taste for harness racing, I was told, exited stage left, and never returned.
I’ve heard people speculate what having Nicklaus as an owner might have done for harness racing. Certainly that connection could only have helped the sport’s visibility. And maybe Nicklaus would have enlisted some of his golf cronies into partnerships.
Recently I heard a few more details on Jack’s brief fling with Standardbred ownership. I heard that his trainer was taking him to the cleaners and that the late Delvin Miller learned what was going on. Delvin didn’t know Nicklaus, but he had a longtime friendship with Arnold Palmer, another decent golfer, so he called Palmer and said (according to my source): “Tell Jack that he’s got to get his horses away from that guy.”
Nicklaus apparently did and never returned to harness racing. He’s still a big name in central Ohio, even though he has the good sense to live elsewhere. There is a Jack Nicklaus Museum on the edge of the Ohio State University golf course, which was where Jack went to college.
Now what does all this have to do with the price of tea in China or harness racing today?
Well, it seems that some things never change. I recently received a very angry and indignant e-mail from an owner who says he’s getting out of Standardbred ownership after 30 years. It’s not just the financial hardship, he claims, but also a double-dealing trainer and his disgust at the lack of effective regulation in racing.
This owner had an Ontario-bred pacing colt that showed a lot of promise, so much promise that he had offers to buy him long before he ever raced. He held onto the dream and held onto the colt. Since the owner and trainer are Americans, they decided to send him to an Ontario trainer.
So he called an Ontario trainer to discuss sending him the youngster. The owner admits that the conversation didn’t feel right and that in retrospect he knows he should have trusted his instincts. Nevertheless, the colt and his equipment went north.
The trainer called soon and asked what kind of colt they’d sent him. He needed a lot of work, the trainer told the owner. The owner thought maybe it was simply a problem of adjusting to a new environment. He went to Canada to see the colt and the trainer, but the trainer wasn’t available.
Within a month, the colt had fallen apart and was shipped back to the States as useless. But the brand-new harness that went with him was missing. The trainer said that the colt never had a harness when he arrived.
“I never ship a horse without its harness,” the owner told me. And the trainer had never said anything about the colt arriving without a harness.
The colt was later sold for $1,200 and the owner wrote off the whole experience to bad luck with a trainer and an expensive lesson regarding the harness.
But it only added fuel to the fire that this same owner feels over trainers who defy any attempts to curtail their activities with penalties.
He told me recently, “What I saw this year [2009] stretched whatever faith or confidence I’ve had in the business to the breaking point.”
He then went through a long list of trainers who have had positives and penalties and yet they’re still free to practice their trade. I won’t mention the names, but probably you’re familiar with all of them.
“Please don’t insult my intelligence,” he says in reference to apologists for these trainers. He goes on to say and he and his buddies often made trips to major tracks on both sides of the border to see prominent races and to bet. Those days are gone, he says. His friends who still follow racing do so via computer or simulcasting.
“A contributing factor has been their (and my) disgust with the present state of enforcement in the business,” he writes.
None of this man’s rant is news to me or to you. We’ve heard it before. Many times. What we have not heard or seen is an effective way to combat this declining bettor confidence.
The same old/same old won’t work. Our penalties are often a joke. Many racing commissions simply go through the motions, heedless of the fact that the same shenanigans are still going on.
If the bettors and owners don’t have confidence in the sport, we’re doomed. It seems it’s too late for this bettor and owner as he says he’s “getting out.”
Racing needs to make some draconian changes in its regulatory efforts or we’ll just sit and watch horse racing disintegrate.