Meadowlands Meet to go January 1st

I spoke with a friend today and he said "has the Meadowlands closed down?"

With handles lower and lower, along with field size thanks to neighbouring slots tracks, one might be excused for thinking that. After all, each year come the third week in November the harness world focuses on New Jersey. But this year, the meet is starting January first.

A few changes from last year:

* Sustaining payments for the Meadowlands Pace are lowered. I think this is a good idea, as I found those high.

* Hambo day is huge again: "Racing's greatest day is set for Saturday, August 7 with the sport's premier events for 3-year-old trotters, the $1.5 million Hambletonian and $750,000 Oaks for fillies, forming the centerpiece of a $4 million card. Sharing the spotlight are the $525,000 Merrie Annabelle, $523,000 Peter Haughton Memorial, $400,000 Mistletoe Shalee, $325,000 US Pacing Championship, $300,000 Nat Ray Invitational, $246,000 Lady Liberty, $230,000 Oliver Wendell Holmes and $100,000 Perretti Farms Matchmaker."

* The Woodrow Wilson and the Haughton are late August starts.

I sure hope the drivers hang around a little this year instead of bolting to Chester at the first sign of a higher purse. As well, a few more fields of eight or more are on the Christmas wishlist.

Some Stiffs and Some Tweets

Y'know when you go to form an opine on something and then get hit right between the eyes? This happened to me today. Last evening I was reading about the NTRA Survey on thoroughbred racing, and was struck by this metric:

Among core fans, 70% said they don’t believe there is “widespread cheating” in Thoroughbred racing—but that means three in 10 aren’t convinced.

I was about to write a post that this was too high, and the reasons why. I got busy doing a little pre-Monday work and did not get to it. Then I wake this morning to see this:

According to a report, a harness racing owner has been banned from the sport for 13 years after it was determined that he was found guilty of manipulating a race.

An article by the Herald-Sun states that Queensland harness racing stewards down under have banned the owner, Lucas Sullivan, and also disqualified drivers Jay Bellamy and David Turner for four years for not letting their horses run on their merits.

It seems these fellas were making some scores on off form horses. Nothing new there, but I would submit this is rare. With purses so high there is no reason for this any longer. But I guess to bury our heads in the sand would not be wise. Regardless, just when I was gonna write about something..... boom.

Next up: The R2 Collective had a post up today about a company which offers "tweets" from some celeb's about your product and service. Yep, for a few hundred bucks singer Leanne Rimes can tweet to her followers that your really awesome new broom kicks some major ass around the kitchen.

I wondered about this for racing; so let's talk harness. Who would be good celebs to promote harness racing via online mediums?

George Steinbrenner owned harness horses, including the very good Incredible Finale. He would be a good candidate. It would be funny to hear what he thought about the quality of drives his horses receive.

Also, Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman has harness ties. His dad ran Castelton Farms in Lexington for many years (among other things racing related).

Eddie Olczyk, the former NHL coach and player apparently bets some harness racing.

Former Leafs centre Mats Sundin is known for more than being traded for Wendel Clark. He owns Rotation, the really good trotter, and I think still owns horses.

Those are off the top of my head and I am sure there are many more, so add to those in the comments section if you guys and gals can think of some.

Speaking of R2, the very talented writer and journalist Claire Novak wrote a blog post about the project today on NTRA.com. "Racetrack executives should take notice and bookmark this site; advertising and marketing managers should add it to their RSS feeds or a daily click-through part of the morning news routine. As various forms of social media develop, it will serve the industry well to remain up on the times – and R2 Collective will lead the way." It is darn nice to hear such positive things about the project. Thanks very much Claire!

200 wins in 233 Starts? Youbetcha

Glen over at Harnessdriver.com has a look at Jarvsofaks, a cold-blood trotter racing in Scandanavia. Today this 15 year old trotter got his 200th win.

Some facts that Glen offers about this phenom:

-Born 1994 -15 years old
-233 starts, 200 wins
-21.2 million in earnings
-sire of 500 plus; 11 are millionaires
-holds every World Record for cold blood trotters
-win : 86%
-in the money : 94%
-horse of the Year title in Sweden -Norway -Finland -11 times
-multiple winner of every major race
-number of consecutive wins 42
-200th win today
-mandatory retirement this year

When he was profiled last year by Dean Hoffman, this old fella only had 176 wins - so he has been busy.

Somebeachsomewhere was heralded for his 20 for 21 record. Zenyatta is equally heralded for her 14 for 14. How about 200 for 233? Priceless.