When Nathan Bain won the 2020 Leamington Raceway Youth Handicapping Challenge over rival Nick "Ace" Barnsdale, the stage was set for a future renewal of the head-to-head battle. This year, Barnsdale and Bain will make picks for Hiawatha Horse Park in a full-season challenge that kicks off Saturday afternoon (June 19).
Hiawatha announcer Dave Walls said he followed the Leamington Challenge last season and saw the importance of supporting skilled young harness handicappers:
"We're always going to have our older people that like betting, but trying to get the young people requires young people, and social media seems to be the way to go. We're hoping they'll drive a little more [audience and wagering] towards our channel."
Walls added that the rules will be the same as for the Leamington contest, with 10 points for a winning top-choice selection, 5 for a place finish and 3 for a show finish. Results will be released weekly: "We'll put it up on our website and keep updated throughout the year." Hiawatha has recently unveiled a new website, which can be found at www.hiawathahorsepark.ca.
The contest has a $500 purse again, with $300 awaiting the winner and $200 for the runner-up.
"Jim Henderson, the owner of Hiawatha, is donating the prize money," said Walls. "I'm the one who got Nathan involved. He covered announcing for me once and helped out with the video crew and stuff like that, so it was just a good fit to get those guys involved" in a competition people can follow on Twitter (@HiawathaHP is the track's handle; Bain is @NBainracing; Barnsdale is @AceBarnsdale.) With the 2021 racing season beginning without on-track fans, the focus on online wagering has never been stronger for the Sarnia, Ont., five-eighths-mile track, which is available to a wider market this year via the Horseplayer Interactive platform and other ADWs.
"Hopefully we can entice some bettors who are betting on other Ontario tracks to take a peek at our product," said Walls. "Obviously we missed a couple of months of racing due to the lockdown, but everything seems to be pretty good. We have 11 races again this Saturday. It shows that there are still lots of horses in Ontario, and with all the baby races going on in Toronto the last couple weekends, we're going to have a big influx of young two- and three-year-olds coming to the racetrack in the next couple of weeks too."
Nick Barnsdale said he's eager for the Sarnia contest to get rolling, especially since there's no home-track advantage for Bain this time around:
"Oh, I'm ready for revenge! I wasn't happy to be defeated last time, and of course it was still a fun challenge, but I really want to even the score this time at Hiawatha," he explained with a friendly laugh. The USHWA Youth member (Canadian chapter) has been busy writing for Harnesslink, and was making his contest selections on Friday. Saturday's card "is pretty good for one of the smaller tracks in Ontario," in his estimation: "The races do look somewhat competitive and there are a few different angles you can take."
Nathan Bain is seeking to sustain the momentum of his 2020 handicapping series victory. "I'm absolutely thrilled that it can go on, and I think it's good to change it up, change it to a different track to make it more interesting, too," he said Friday.
In spite of last year's pandemic-related struggles for the racing industry, Bain's home track recorded a milestone ADW-generated handle in 2020. "It was a bit of a rough start to the season at Leamington, but once we overcame those difficulties and got our wagering platforms straightened out, especially getting to the States on wagering sites over there, people played one week, and then played the rest of the season," often following his and Barnsdale's selections, said the USHWA Youth member (Canadian chapter). "That's why the handle got so strong near the end."
In its second year of availability for online betting, Leamington exceeded expectations: "October, which is our weakest month, turned out to be our strongest month because the simulcast schedule is a little lighter. Closing day, I think we did $27,000 online and $11,000 on track, so for online handle, that was our record-setting day."
With the Hiawatha Horse Park Youth Handicapping Challenge offering picks for newcomers looking to try betting the track, the sky's also the limit for its ADW-based wagering this season. Scorekeeper Garnet Barnsdale will be keeping tabs on Nathan and Ace's weekly results; he is also sponsoring this year's presentation plaques at the end of the contest.
(USHWA Canadian Chapter)