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Archive for September, 2009

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September 23, 2009

Scott Zeron perfect south of the border

By Lauren Lee

Scott Zeron perfect south of the border

When opportunity knocked for Scott Zeron to get his first-ever drive in the U.S., the 20-year-old driver took the Red Bull by the horns.

After getting a call to see if he was available to drive a colt named V Squared in an Ohio Breeders Championship on Jugette Day, Zeron didn’t hesitate. He booked off his drives for the next day, drove at Grand River on Tuesday night, pounded a couple of Red Bull energy drinks and then hit the road for Delaware, OH, arriving at 4:30 a.m.

It was worth the effort. Zeron scored an easy win with V Squared, the trotter’s fifth in a row, and in doing so won his first race in the U.S. in his first start south of the border.

“It’s unbelievable. That’s what I want to do. I’m happy I got my name out there and I’m so happy I got into the winner’s circle,” said Zeron, whose margin of victory was comfortable enough that he even posed a little when he crossed the wire as he savoured legendary announcer Roger Huston calling his name.

“I think that was my favourite part,” he said, with a laugh. “That was as good as winning, just having him call it.”

Shortly thereafter, he was receiving a congratulatory phone call from his proud parents, Joyce and Rick Zeron — who has won nearly 7,000 times as a driver, but never at the Delaware County Fairgrounds.

“My mom said she had to pass him the Kleenex box,” he said, with a laugh.

“He’s never won here, I guess, and hasn’t raced here very much at all, so for me to win my first race, in my first start, it was unbelievable.”

The only unfortunate thing for Zeron was that he couldn’t stay longer to enjoy the atmosphere. Shortly after his big win at Delaware, Zeron was heading straight back to Canada to drive one of the favourites, FBs Terror, in the Ontario Sires Stakes Gold Final at Flamboro on Thursday.

Then again, there are worst things than leaving Jug week batting 1.000.

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September 22, 2009

Embracing the modern Jug like an old friend

By Dave Briggs

Embracing the modern Jug like an old friend

 

 

You should know I missed the first 49, which makes it impossible for me to pine for the days of the orchard or revile the behemoth corporate hospitality tent that sprung up for the first time in the first turn the first year I came to the Delaware County Fairgrounds.
 
My history is forever entwined with the most obvious symbol that this is no longer your granddaddy’s Little Brown Jug. But it doesn’t make me love the Jug any less. Nor does it make me incapable of reveling in the way things were, even though I did not bear witness.
 
There are not too many moments in your life that leave an indelible mark. One of mine came late on a summer afternoon in 1995 when June Midden and her sister Mary Hackett led me up a set of wooden stairs rising from the bowels of the old grandstand. We surfaced into one of the most glorious locations in all of harness racing.
 
The perfectly manicured hedge spelling out Little Brown Jug.
 
The judges’ green-roofed gazebo standing sentinel at the finish line.
 
The log cabin rising above the backstretch.
 
The heavily-banked bullring that seemed to echo with the rumble of hooves from champions long since departed for celestial ovals and lush paddocks stretching toward eternity.
 
There was also the tent, of course, which struck me at the time as a newcomer to all this history with its perfect corners and the pristine sheen of hospital whites.
 
My tour guides were the daughters of Wayne “Curly” Smart, a Delaware legend who not only won the inaugural Jug in ‘46 driving Ensign Hanover, but also a second Jug six years later with Meadow Rice. The family lived right around the corner from the fairgrounds in the Jug’s nascent days. Such proximity afforded Curly the opportunity to spend countless evenings conditioning the track, honing the clay to make it as fast as possible, as much to his own advantage as anyone’s.
 
Fourteen years after seeing it spread out before me for the first time, it is as vivid a memory as the day as a young boy I emerged from a dark concourse tunnel at Tiger Stadium in Detroit for the first time, my father by my side. I can still hear the echo of the public address announcer and the electric chatter of the crowd; still smell the hot dogs and nachos drowned in cheese and jalapeños; still see the ballplayers warming up over a sea of emerald and gold wrapped in a two-tiered cocoon of steel pillars and plastic seats; still feel the ghost of Ty Cobb and the specters of scores of other legends who had played there.
 
I was only a couple of years out of journalism school when I found harness racing. Three months after my baptism, I drove five hours south to Delaware, Ohio to meet Curly’s girls to do a story for The Canadian Sportsman’s special publication celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Little Brown Jug. It was all new to me then. It’s as if it’s always been a part of my life ever since; like an old friend I visit once a year.

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September 21, 2009

How to fix the problem: a multi-track Pick-8

By Alan Kirschenbaum

How to fix the problem: a multi-track Pick-8

 

 

So we have identified the problem, then. No one knows we exist. We have fallen off the radar. And now, we either push ourselves back onto the screen, or wait for the inevitable reduction in our handouts. And it is coming, it might even be here. So we need to make one last furious push to get ourselves back onto the screen. Again, not so we can return our sport to its glorious heyday. Not so Muscle Hill will be on the cover of Sports Illustrated, or Brian Sears on the Jay Leno Show. Those days are gone. We just need to inch our way back into the public consciousness, so when civilians hear about “harness racing,” their mind immediately jumps to something positive, something exciting, something. And it’s not going to happen by giving away more t-shirts, or by hosting more concerts. It’s going to happen when people hear someone mention “harness racing,” and they think something like, “Oh, yeah, that’s where you can win a million dollars.”
 
We are a gambling sport, remember? Many of you do not. There are more than a few days at several of our leading slot tracks, and almost all of the B-tracks, where the purses given away dwarf the actual handle of that day’s races. What I am proposing is this: Eight of the most successful tracks band together and create a North American Pick-8, with a guaranteed pool of $400,000 to start, taking place on Saturdays, with a dedicated Internet/television show broadcasting handicapping info, the eight live races, updates on live tickets as it gets later in the sequence, and, ideally, interviews with the owners of previous and current winning tickets. One race with a full-to-bursting field from Yonkers, from the Meadowlands, from Dover, from Chester, from Pocono Downs, from The Meadows, from WEG, from Indiana, all of whom do not offer any other form of multi-race wager that day.
 
I remember last season when the Meadowlands Pick-6 carryover got up to somewhere around $500,000, and bettors from around North America chased that jackpot with another $900,000, making the total pot nearly a million-and-a-half dollars. And going into the last leg, three of the 10 starters had no backers, meaning there was still a chance that it was going to carry over for another day. And how much would have been thrown into the pot that next night? And that’s at one, albeit arguably the most popular, racetrack. Now imagine if the marketing efforts of the USTA, Standardbred Canada and each racetrack were behind this, with a few months lead time to make sure every pari-mutuel gambler in the world knew about it?
 
And here’s the thing: in my opinion, it wouldn’t even cost anything! That $400,000 pool guarantee is just a guarantee: each track guarantees $50,000, in an ideal world, this would be split evenly between each facility’s management and purse pool. But with proper marketing and awareness, the first night’s wager will be higher than the guarantee, and if there are not tickets with eight-out-of-eight, and another week’s lead time to publicize the estimated pool size, by the second Saturday, the pool will be in the millions. And this will get people’s attention.
 
And if the pool doesn’t exceed the guarantee? And the purse pools and track managements take a little hit every now and then? I personally don’t think it will ever happen, but so what? Does the open trot at Woodbine, or at Yonkers, really need to go for $50,000? Would anyone’s life change drastically if one week it went for $45,000? You’re all involved in a gambling sport, right? So gamble. Because we’re gambling even more if we don’t do anything. We’re gambling that no one’s going to mess with our slot money. And as a gambler, I don’t like those odds.
 

 

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