Via some insightful blog posts, Woodbine Entertainment Group host Greg Blanchard and racing analyst Mike Hamilton have proposed marketing standardbred handicappers, essentially promoting them as stars alongside horses and horsemen.

Starting off by referencing Trot Magazine's $25,000 Trot Canada National Handicapping Competition, Blanchard states that, like with the meteoric rise of poker, standardbred racing can gain positive exposure through such a venture, possibly teaching potential customers some of the finer points of handicapping at the same time.

A four paragraph segment from Blanchard's blog appears below.

"Just picture it - a few years down the road - the national handicapping championship for a purse of $1,000,000 (okay, maybe that's a bit far-fetched, but even $100,000 has a nice ring to it), with full national network coverage.

Seems like a pipe dream, but sometimes you have to think big.

I remember watching the DRF National Handicapping Championship a couple of years back on ESPN and being totally captivated by the two-hour broadcast. It had all the elements of a compelling show -- plenty of interesting characters, lots of action and drama galore.

The ESPN crew followed all of the participants over the course of two days and edited the entire thing into a tight, polished looking production that had the feel of televised poker. Things played out perfectly with longtime 'capper' Ron Rippey getting a longshot home in the final race to take the $250,000 top prize."

Hamilton echoes many of the same sentiments in his blog, a piece of which appears below.

"If you're chuckling or perhaps even shaking your fist at me by now, ask yourself what you knew about poker 10 years ago. You may have played Seven Card Stud on a rainy day at the cottage, at a friend's stag, or down in the basement with some buddies a few times a year. You likely didn't play Texas Hold'em and you sure as heck didn't know the names Phil Helmuth, Daniel Negreanu or Chris Moneymaker. And neither did millions of other people who now play the game online, dreaming of one day appearing on any number of televised poker tournaments, and all the while enriching the online gambling companies to the tune of billions. Not millions, as in the combined handle of every racetrack in Canada for an entire year, but billions with a capital B."

To finish off his blog entry, Hamilton says that, if approached in the proper manner, marketing standardbred handicappers could be very beneficial for the industry as a whole. Hamilton's closing paragraph appears below.

"I'll be the first to admit that this idea is in its infancy. Many stakeholders would have to come together before it could be executed on a scale that would catch the attention of anyone predisposed to gambling. It would have to be an industry-wide endeavor with a huge jackpot and an equal or larger chunk of change set aside for developing, promoting and running the game. I don't know how it would be funded but I'd suggest that we start by taking a cold, hard look at dozens of initiatives that cost gobs of money but simply aren't delivering new bettors by the busload. I sincerely believe that a nationally televised game that involves picking winners could do for horse racing what televised Texas Hold'em did for the gaming industry."

(With files from Greg Blanchard and Mike Hamilton)