During the summer and fall of 2022, people kept saying how our industry benefitted so greatly from the exploits of Bulldog Hanover. You’d hear it constantly: “The exposure he’s getting us is so great for our sport!”

Now we’re hearing it all over again in regard to the exploits of Beau Jangles.

The one thing nobody has explained to me, however, is what they mean by this exactly? Just how has our sport, either then or now, as a whole, gained exposure and reaped rewards from either?

Yes, I believe that more people are showing up at the track, live and in-person, to watch Beau Jangles race, than would be there if he wasn’t. Just like they did when Bulldog was on his record tear of 2022.

Jack Darling actually spoke to me about the incredible experience they had with the large crowd at Dayton Raceway in particular - and I wrote about it, back then, right here in The View. And if a significant number of those fans that showed up at Dayton Raceway that night, on October 1, 2022, to see Bulldog crush his eight foes, were actually new fans to our sport, then I’d agree that yes, it was a great thing for our game.

But did Bulldog attract a significant number of new fans to Standardbred racing that year? I don’t think we really know the answer to that.

I know that I never once saw a single thing about him on either TSN or Sportsnet during that run, and when I Googled his name just now, in the first three pages of results I only found two stories about him that ever appeared on non-horse racing sites. There’s one story that appeared back then in The Globe & Mail (that I can’t read unless I subscribe), and one that appeared in The Toronto Sun.

Hmmmm? Is that the exposure that was so great for our sport?

Let me be 100% clear before I go any further: If we didn’t use Bulldog Hanover properly to gain new eyeballs on our sport, and we’re not doing any better with Beau Jangles, that is NOT the fault of either incredible animal nor their connections. That would be our fault as an industry in general.

Bulldog Hanover was - and as a stallion still is - an incredible animal. He was the perfect superstar, back in 2022, for us to use to promote our sport to the outside world, in an effort to bring attention to our game.

Beau Jangles is an incredible animal. He is the perfect superstar, right now in 2026, for us to use to promote our sport to the outside world, in an effort to bring attention to our game.

The next question is, ‘How do we do it?’

What do we do to take advantage of having a superstar equine athlete like Beau Jangles in our midst? What do we do to make sure it’s actually true, when people say that the presence of the three-year-old son of Cattlewash is so great for our sport?

I’m not talking about regurgitating old fans that still follow the game but don’t really participate any longer (although we want to bring them back to the track too). I’m talking about bringing new, young fans into the game - and hopefully keeping them!

Some people will tell you that we need to use more social media - and I don’t disagree. But some will also say that we need to hire some online influencers with massive followings to get the word out for us - in that I’m not so sure.

Social media influencers can obviously get the word out there, but they also come with large price tags. They might have millions of followers, but so do you and I… if we combine our numbers and do it ourselves.

The number of people that follow harness racing may have dwindled in recent years, but there’s still thousands and thousands of us out there. The Standardbred Canada website alone gets views from approximately 18,000 absolute unique visitors every single day.

I, for example, have approximately 1,200 friends on Facebook, and somewhere around one-third of them aren’t horsepeople, So if I use my own personal Facebook page to educate people about an equine superstar named Beau Jangles, my post alone has the possibility of reaching 400 people who have currently never heard of him.

It’s pretty safe to say that the 18,000 different people who visited the SC website today know exactly who Beau Jangles is. And if they can all share that information with just 200 people who don’t, then we, as an industry, are reaching in the vicinity of 3,600,000 people… without even hiring an online influencer.

It takes a village!

This past Sunday, May 17th, Woodbine did a great job by drawing an estimated 7,000 fans to Mohawk Park for the races, followed by a free display of Victoria Day fireworks.

Please tell me that we can draw at least that many out on North America Cup night this year, should Beau Jangles be racing.

And if we can’t at least do that, please don’t tell me how extraordinarily great his existence is for our sport.

I’m quite certain that it could be, and I believe that it should be, but before we all start patting ourselves on the back about how it is, let’s make sure we do whatever we can to make it a reality first.

Dan Fisher
[email protected]