Harness: One last dance for the game-changing 3-year-old Confederate

Heading into Saturday's (November 25) FanDuel championship for pacers, a race that marks the last competitive outing for this year's likely Horse of the Year Confederate, there's a sense that the 3-year-old, facing older rivals in stakes action for the first time in his career, has nothing to lose.

With 18 victories in his 21 career starts, Confederate, a son of Sweet Lou, has already stamped himself as the best horse in his crop of sophomores, and one of the best of the last generation. That said, what Confederate represents in 2023 is a hybrid for the modern Standardbred pacer. He's not part gas/part electric, but in racing terms he's a horse that has defied the common path to victory that others have needed to in order to prove themselves. Specifically, Confederate has managed to win those races and important stakes events while sacrificing a key element that most of his rivals seek out. Confederate, over the span of his two-year racing career, has only been on the front-end of a mile at the quarter pole in two of those 18 career victories.

Perhaps it was intent to make the final that had driver Tim Tetrick put Confederate on the lead in last year's Breeders Crown elimination at Woodbine Mohawk Park and then once again in this year's North America Cup elimination over the same surface. Getting into those finals was paramount for Confederate, and Tetrick has recognized over the course of his career that the easiest way to stay out of trouble in elimination races when you're sitting behind the best horse is take the lead and expect horses to willingly follow without incident.

What's interesting in today's racing environment is that some have considered Confederate's racing style, unconventional as it is, to be a weakness, with comments like: "He can't cut a mile." The implication is that coming first-over in major races and winning convincingly was not proof enough of the horse's gifted ability.

For Saturday night there were two schools of thought regarding Confederate's appearance that have been bandied about. On one hand, his victory in the Breeders Crown and then Matron guaranteed his spot in the division and had they been his last starts would have ended his racing career on an obvious high note. On the other hand was the opportunity to race just once against older foes and perhaps in doing so expose something in Confederate that we haven't seen against sophomores. The "what-ifs" aside, performance on the racetrack, whether against all horses your age or older rivals, comes with no guarantees. All horses have good days and bad days, and racing luck finds horses getting good trips and bad trips. Confederate's lone defeat in 2023 came at Woodbine Mohawk Park, the same location he lost his only other career stakes race in last year's Breeders Crown. The trip wasn't ideal as he ceded plenty of real estate to the red-hot It's My Show in the North America Cup and made up a ton of ground only to come up a head shy at the wire. The North America Cup would prove to be a valued learning experience for the horse and driver as Confederate would never be too far from the leader and was always close enough to win with his explosive late kick.

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The questions heading into Saturday are all age-based in the sense that Confederate will be pitted against horses that by some definition are bigger and stronger than he is. Again, those representations are just another example of a narrative that Confederate obviously does not fit. If the argument has been you can't be a great horse if you don't win on the front-end, Confederate has managed to discard that as being irrelevant. Confederate has carved out his own niche in the racing world, done so with 21 races, and no races where he was passed by another horse in the homestretch. His lone defeats came while he was going past horses but failed to pick off the final one.

It's been a remarkable two years for Confederate and heading into Saturday's contest, win or lose, it seems unlikely a horse will be able to go past him in the stretch. Being faster than others has its benefits, and it's that raw speed that has defined the colt and excited the racing world. World records come and go and it's much harder to get as excited about them as we once did, but horses that can carry extreme speed while racing on the outside or sacrificing the comfort of the front-end to others, have not come along until Confederate arrived.

The competition should be keen on Saturday, with Bythemissal closing out his 4-year-old campaign in career form if his impressive score in the Potomac at Rosecroft is an indicator. Having put an end to Tattoo Artist's brilliant streak in the Breeders Crown, the Ron Burke trainee looked even better in Maryland for driver Yannick Gingras. While Bythemissal did cut the pace in the Potomac, there's a serious question about whether he could do the same in the FanDuel and find the same results. As good as both Bythemissal and Tattoo Artist have been at times this year, each has found themselves on the lead late in the stretch and have been passed at the wire. That's not a knock on two great horses, but the reality of competitive racing and the toll it takes when multiple horses all want to be on the front-end.

With stallion careers awaiting Confederate and Tattoo Artist after their final race on Saturday night, it should be understood the next chapter in their careers comes with no guarantees other than the likely optimism from breeders that they will advance the next generation of pacers.

A year ago, many were still questioning whether Sweet Lou and his offspring could compete with the arsenal that had enveloped the sport from superstar Somebeachsomewhere and his siring sons Captaintreacherous and more recently Downbytheseaside. In 2023 Sweet Lou was the dominant stallion, putting an end to rumors of his demise and paving the way for breeders not only to consider him, but the extension of his male line through Confederate and Cannibal in 2024. That chapter to the story is yet to be written. Confederate, no matter how he handles Saturday's contest, has the chance to define the next generation if the fillies and colts he sires can match his speed and will to win.