The Canadian Sportsman

I used to love writing about harness racing. For a few years in the 1980s, I did it quite a bit. I would go to the biggest events, get there early to make sure I could get a parking spot, show some sort of press credential so I could get backstage, into the paddock or the winner’s circle, where the thousands of people in the stands couldn’t go, and do my interviews with the drivers, trainers, and owners of the winning horses. Then I’d return home to my apartment on the lower east side of Manhattan and stay up late into the night and write my pieces. Maybe the average Joe out there in the world didn’t find the people compelling, or the animals magnificent, but I surely did. I was passionate, and enthusiastic, and never had to fake it, or make anything up.

I’m writing about harness racing again these days, and, heart-breakingly, I have to make up quite a bit of it. No, not for this blog, which I am honored to be writing. The Canadian Sportsman has provided a quality and quantity of journalism that in my opinion, exists nowhere else in this sport. Dave Briggs and his staff are willing to embrace controversy and use tough words; they see what is happening to harness racing with a clear eye, not through the rose-colored glasses that our administrative bodies often are forced to use.

In my real life, I am writing a screenplay for a movie, a comedy in which the main character, our hero, is a degenerate gambler, with a lifelong dream of owning a champion racehorse. His streak of bad luck changes early on in the story, as he stumbles upon a family he never knew he had, and the main action of the film deals with his emotional arc as he learns about what it really means to be a parent. And, as so many compulsive gamblers do, along the way, our hero doesn’t limit himself to betting on the horses. He wagers on sports, plays the Lotto, and considers himself a world-class poker player. But there are quite a few scenes at the track, and that, unfortunately, is where I have to start dealing in fiction.

Our hero hangs around a racetrack where the grandstand and clubhouse are always crowded, where it is difficult to score a table in the Turf Club, where there are lines at the pari-mutuel windows, where the thousands of fans rise to their feet at the start of the race, and scream their lungs out at the finish. And sadly, the only place I can see a harness track like this is when I close my eyes, and my memories take over.

Yes, things have changed in the last 30 years, and I understand that as long as bettors have their online accounts, and money still gets wagered, and the slot machines continue to spin, there will be racing. But the empty grandstands and the disinterested slot players won’t make for a very satisfying movie. And that’s what I fear the most; that when this script is finished, and it turns out well, and someone actually considers making the movie, they will ask “Where do we shoot this racing stuff?” And when they look into where we as a sport are today, they will suggest a rewrite to make it about thoroughbred racing, and want to film in the summer at Delmar or Saratoga, where it will be so simple to visually translate the beauty and excitement of horse racing.

The bad news for screenwriters is that, best case scenario, it takes a few years for a movie to get made. But maybe that’s good news for harness racing. Maybe by the time this movie gets shot, if it ever gets shot, there will be more people in the stands, and there will be more interest in our sport. Keep reading over the next few months to hear some ideas on how we can make that happen.