One month ago in this very space, I suggested that Standardbred racing should and would be back, significantly sooner than other major sports in North America - and it seems that is going to be the case, with many tracks around Canada and the U.S. either open once again now, or doing so in the coming days.

Approximately two-and-a-half months of racing was missed throughout much of North America, and that wasn’t easy for anyone. Owners, trainers, drivers, grooms, tracks, associations, regulators - nobody was spared. Many had their pay cut, or were laid off completely during this time. In fact I don’t think that I know anybody in the industry, myself included, who wasn’t hit in the wallet to some degree. So I’m not saying this in a flippant way at all when I say that regardless, we should consider ourselves lucky in the grand scheme of things.

As of this moment 373,980 people are dead from the Coronavirus, meaning millions of other related lives have been destroyed also.

As of this moment, as the virus numbers slowly start to level off in North America, the number of new cases soar in places like Brazil and Russia.

As of this moment, millions are left unemployed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

As of this moment, and as I write these very words, tens of thousands of protesters shut down, loot and burn American cities, and the National Guard has been brought in all over the United States, following the horrible death of George Floyd at the hands of police officers in Minneapolis on May 25th.

As of this moment, and for hundreds of years prior, many African Americans in this world have lived in the face of racism, and have good reason to be afraid for their lives while just walking down the street.

We work towards a goal, together as the human race, to hopefully rid our planet of the COVID-19 pandemic, and even though we’re told that this could take as long as two years, and that can be hard to imagine, we’ll do what we have to do, together, to make that reality.

Two years seems like forever to rid the world of this virus - can you imagine hundreds of years of trying to rid the planet of something worse - racism - and being unsuccessful?

Slavery was abolished in the U.S. in 1865, but 100 years later in the 1960’s, thanks in large part to the poor treatment and living conditions of many African Americans in U.S. cities, race riots broke out in many places across the United States. The most visible spokesperson and leader of that Civil Rights Movement, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated in 1968.

I often listen to a song about Dr. King, by transcendent Irish rockers, U2. It’s simply called MLK, and it begins like this:

Sleep

Sleep tonight

And may your dreams

Be realized…

Sadly, incidents like the recent murder of a young black man, Ahmaud Arbery, as he was jogging through a subdivision near Atlanta, and the murder of George Floyd, are just two of many that clearly show, 52 years after his death, MLK’s dream has not been realized.

Why did I write about this in a harness racing publication?

Well a few short months ago many of us dreamed that we might be able to race our horses again soon, and that dream is close to coming true. But other people’s dreams, like those of Martin Luther King Jr., haven’t been coming true, for hundreds of years now, and not enough is changing in that regard. Is writing about it in a harness racing publication going to change that? Maybe not right away, but I have an audience of approximately 10,000 people, and maybe if everyone out there like me who can, tells 10,000 people, then maybe someday MLK’s dream will come true too.

Good racing luck. Stay safe out there, and keep dreaming.

Dan Fisher
[email protected]