Harness: Racing Pet Peeves
This is the moment to be thankful in the United States as we celebrate Thanksgiving Day. While most will be expecting the usual “List of things I’m thankful for” column, I choose to zig when most expect me to zag.
Below you will find my list of pet peeves when it comes to horse racing. I say “horse” and not harness racing because each of my issues with the sport occur across both breeds.
This happened to me at The Meadowlands on TVG night and just the thought of it makes me cringe. I hand my winning ticket to the teller and he begins to count out my money, licking his fingers after every fourth or fifth bill. Each time his saliva touches his fingers I’m getting grossed-out more and more. I’m not sure if it is the thought of having to touch the saliva-slobbered money or the fact that he is touching the money and putting his fingers on his tongue exposing it to who knows what, that has me so up in arms. Who am I kidding? It’s definitely the fact that I’ll have to touch that same money. Later that same evening another teller was kind enough to use a damp paper towel as his source for friction when dealing with money. I certainly appreciated his efforts.
Is there anything more annoying than watching a race via the internet and the track not showing the odds in the final minutes before post time? That’s like going to the mall and buying something but they don’t tell you the price until you get home and open it. You’d be surprised how often this occurs. I saw it less than a week ago. The final 1-2 minutes before the race when “off” there were no odds, no exacta payouts, nothing! Can’t we do better than that? Shouldn’t odds be on the screen until just seconds before the race is set in motion?
Sticking with proper dissemination of wagering information, is there anything more annoying than tracks not showing exacta probables on their live feeds? Wait, there is, when you are patiently waiting to see the probables with the #5 horse as the race is getting ready to head to post and it skips from the 4-horse to 6-horse.
Though I visit the track many, many times throughout the year, I still do most of my wagering from the comfort of my home using an ADW (advance deposit wagering) website. The lack of consistency with displaying prices and “will pays” using the same denominations is infuriating. Imagine this, you bet a .50-cent Pick 5 at The Meadowlands and make it to the last leg alive to three horses. You check your favorite ADW to see what you could possibly collect if your horse wins and see $2,000. Just 15 minutes later your horse wins and you get $500 because the $2,000 number was based on a $2 ticket. Even better, sometimes one site will list $500, another will list $1,000 and another $2,000. How hard would it be for everyone in the industry to simply agree to show payoffs and will-pays at the base price . . . or even at a $2 price. Just be consistent!
Perhaps qualifying as more upsetting than a pet peeve is the number of ADWs which don’t offer wagering for every track. I have an ADW which I use regularly and quite frankly I’d make close to 100% of my wagers on that site if they actually accepted wagers on all tracks. Sometimes I have to switch to another ADW, and guess what, they don’t accept wagering on all tracks either. Then you move along to another one and more tracks are missing. In most cases the missing tracks are due to conflicts between different tracks/companies throughout the industry. Just think how much further we could get if we could all just get along.
One of the top pet peeves in the sport is the dragging of post times. I have to admit, it really doesn’t bother me assuming there is consistency. If you want to drag seven minutes every race, I have no issues. What drives me nuts is dragging four minutes one race and 12 minutes the next race. How am I supposed to bet when I don’t know when the race is going to be contested and can’t follow the odds? Additionally, why do I need monitor every minute of what could range from 16 minutes to 30 minutes between races because tracks don’t have enough respect for my time to give me a rough idea when the race will begin?
Finally, and this is something that can’t be helped but it is annoying nonetheless. Doesn’t it stink when you handicap a card earlier in the day only to find out nearing post time that the one horse you liked got scratched? Additionally, is there anything worse than liking a horse in the first race, getting stuck in traffic and finding out they won when you arrive?
Pet peeves aside, I’m very thankful for harness racing. Not only does it provide me with a steady source of income but also with enjoyment on almost a daily basis. Here’s to many more profitable decades for the sport and just as many years worth of columns like this one in my future.