Derick Giwner

Harness Eye past performances are now in the DRF store and available for download. I have been waiting for this moment for a long, long time and have been dying to talk about it for months now. Well, the gag order has been lifted and I can finally speak (type) out loud.

With DRF, the USTA, and TrackMaster announcing a long-term partnership today, Harness Eye past performances are coming to the web. This is exciting news and I'll touch on all that Harness Eye and Daily Harness Program has to offer in the coming days -- read the news release below and watch for harness PPs coming soon. Sign up now to learn more about Daily Racing Form's Harness-racing coverage!  

A while back I read a report that suggested horsemen donate a small percentage of their earnings to put towards drug testing. Well, I’m not going to comment on that matter, but I have a more innovative use for the horsemen’s hard earned dollars.

With all the changes taking place at the Meadowlands, who better to chat with than perennial leading driver Brian Sears? We had the chance to touch on the banked turns, the new mandates for racing strategy put forth by operator Jeff Gural, and a few other tidbits. The $250,000 project to bank the turns at the Meadowlands has produced some early off-the-pace winners but horses near the lead have won their fair share of races as well. Sears agreed that the banking would help but he stopped short of making it a cure-all.

Friday night’s opening of the New Meadowlands featured a few rocky moments but ultimately hit the one mark that mattered – improvement in handle. Total handle for the 12-race card was $2,166,584; an average of $180,548 per race. Last year the track handled $2,266,921 for a 13-race card on opening Friday; an average of $174,378 per race. On-track handle was up an impressive 55 percent when comparing the two dates- $380,499 versus $245,139.