Everybody knows that the dice are loaded Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed Everybody knows the war is over Everybody knows the good guys lost Everybody knows the fight was fixed The poor stay poor, the rich get rich That’s how it goes Everybody knows. The lyrics of the late Canadian great songwriter Leonard Cohen along with Sharon Robinson penned some 30 years ago somehow still ring incredibly true today no matter all of the advances we have made. Yet despite what everybody knows, there remains a small faction that won’t accept it. It may be with some despair that the WEG/Gural rulebook for stakes races has to be delayed into 2019 and it certainly begs the question, what was gained and what was lost in its initial roll out and roll back? The poor stay poor, the rich get rich. Well, that may be one way to look at it, except if we are speaking about the poor horseplayers and not the poor owners that long for the level playing field. It’s hard for me to ponder how the rich appear to think the playing field isn’t level while failing to see that the poor horseplayer has to listen to them whine. Despite the insistence that correcting the apparent problem of illegal drugs will somehow raise the dead horseplayers, it’s hard to see the positives on the surface or just how this industry could ever make good use of eventual storylines that suggest “Leading trainer busted for drugs.” That’s the takeaway I get when looking at the public relations setback the industry as a whole suffered in publicly proclaiming its new get-tough position and then having to retire it for a year. That some take solace in Jeff Gural’s crusade this year to incorporate additional testing and coordination of sorts with the New Jersey Racing Commission, in search of the unchecked criminal, I find it difficult to believe that Gural represents more than a limited minority of those invested in the sport, whether they work with horses or bet on them. Everybody knows the fight was fixed. When I started watching and betting on races in the 70’s it was hard to escape the notion that the races were fixed. Everybody knew that some races were fixed and in the jaded eyes of horseplayers, some may just has well have been all. In the new era of purses pushed up by slot machines, we’ve converted the same types who looked to profit from fixing races into those looking to benefit from owning or training horses. With that inevitable push of going where the money is, the result can’t be that surprising. Yet for some reason there are those that cling to the notion that the sport’s survival is based somehow on a level playing field. Perhaps in 2018 or the next generation we will somehow return to a different era in our sport. It’s hard to believe there is ever going to be a possibility of leveling any playing field or giving everyone an equal chance. Aren’t rules and laws made to be broken or avoided without getting caught? This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. Everybody knows the good guys lost. The very idea to go after owners in this quest for leveling tells the only story you need to know. At the same time as we ponder a loss in the racing business and a loss in the breeding business, we have to ask ourselves whether actually going after owners is guaranteed to give the sport added years of a lifeline. Is it reality to suggest busting owners for bad/good choice of trainers will set us on the path of creating new ownership? With all due respect to those working hard to protect the integrity of the sport, have we all fallen victim to the past and not taken a long close look at the world as we live in it today? Winning or making money at all cost is probably more of today’s mantra than at any time in the last 100 years in North America. Are those of us at a more advanced aged group clinging to the ideals of yesteryear? Are we blindly trying to take the next generation back in time? Are we all that much more moral than today’s generation? Everybody knows the war is over. Thankfully we have places to go if we want to complain that life isn’t fair or my life isn’t fair. That’s what social media has accomplished. For harness racing’s focus to actually be on the future and not simply trying to go back in time for the sake of ideals that collapsed decades ago, it must look at creating a better product and something that is entertaining. To continue to struggle with the allusion of fairness, as if that in and of itself will create a future, seems to be the furthest thing from reality. Harness racing still has much to offer. It can be fun and it can be interesting. There are people we like and people we don’t like. In that sense it’s no different than any other sport. Not everybody was rooting for Bill Belichick, Tom Brady and the Patriots. Despite their reputations for being winners and winning all of the time, many wanted to see them lose the Super Bowl. Whether they deflated footballs or spied on the competition, the NFL has managed to move the dialogue back to the actual game. They’ve accepted what’s happened and moved along. Harness racing can learn a lot by moving along and not making the same story, the only story that gets airtime. If we have our Belichicks and Bradys that seem to win all of the time and at times it doesn’t seem fair, we must move along and find something else to discuss. To be honest, we have worn this storyline out and no capture or conviction of any participant in the sport whether top trainer, bottom trainer, rich owner, or less rich owner, will create more public interest. The NFL understands marketing and they have helped shape and develop it by creating more compelling stories. If only we could follow. Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed.