1:46-FLAT. In the long, and often high profile, history of harness racing, no horse had ever recorded a mile time of 1:46-flat. Until now.
Always B Miki now holds the world record, by himself. With an amazing Red Mile performance, he topped the 1:46.4 race record previously held by the quartet of Holborn Hanover, Somebeachsomewhere, Hes Watching and Warrawee Needy, and bested Cambest’s 1:46.1 time trial set in 1993.
Amazingly, on the same day, Marion Marauder won harness racing’s Trotting Triple Crown, becoming only the ninth horse in racing history to capture the Hambletonian, Yonkers Trot and Kentucky Futurity triple, and the first horse since Glidemaster in 2006.
On harness racing websites and social media channels, October 9th in Lexington was no secret. On Standardbred Canada’s website alone, tens of thousands of people read about these incredible feats, and watched the videos. Including other racing sites, plus social media channels, it’s likely that hundreds of thousands of people caught the news – within hours. With the media landscape of 2016, if you have any connection or interest in the sport, you probably heard about it.
On mainstream media, the fastest mile in the history of harness racing had a tough time competing against a Sunday afternoon of NFL football and Major League Baseball playoffs. While the major newswires moved the Always B Miki story, there was no expectation that it would appear on Sportscentre at 11 pm.
Sports media in 2016 is very focussed on the high profile and the visually appealing. If it’s not NFL, NBA, MLB or NHL – you’re likely not getting air on television or words on mainstream sports sites - unless of course, you’ve landed your skateboard on the roof of a car or set yourself on fire while trying to catch a football on the stove.
But all is not lost – even by a longshot. While a mile in 1:46-flat may not lead the evening sportscast, media opportunities are in more places than ever before. Every small community has local news outlets – either traditional print, or online. Where no media exists, social media picks up the slack. Every industry and interest you can think of has a loyal group of followers.
If we look at our participants and horses, it’s not difficult to see that they have the ability to touch thousands of local communities, towns and cities. Horses are foaled in areas where local newspeople are searching for news. And they are owned by people in every segment of industry, commerce and philanthropy. A dentist who owns racehorses is news if the person who runs a national dental publication knows about it. A miracle foal at a local farm is news if the community paper is told. Even a strange partnership or interesting training story is news, and often all it takes is one email to a local publication or blogger.
In years past, we needed a 1:46-flat mile to be noticed, to win 15 seconds on the evening sports broadcast. And we needed press boxes and PR people to spread the word and deal with a multitude of media requests. Today, while we celebrate Always B Miki for the fastest mile in racing history, we don’t need him to win media attention – because the media is now everywhere. And our army of PR people consists of every person in every community with an interest in harness racing and an email or social media account. It is you.
Your horse may not have a 1:46 mile in him, but with your help, he could still be a star.
Darryl Kaplan
[email protected]
