From WMP to Harrah’s Hoosier Park and beyond, stretch length is a factor in the Breeders Crown

by Melissa Keith

The 2023 Breeders Crown finals at Harrah’s Hoosier Park were not kind to fast-leaving pacesetters. Elimination winners like Logan Park and Tattoo Artist succumbed to late speed in their respective $600,000 finals Oct. 28. Sloppy track conditions made for a tiring trip down the Indiana track’s 1,255-foot stretch, one of the longest in the standardbred sport.

No one went gate-to-wire in the 12 championship finals. Some winners came from off the pace, like Tactical Approach in the 3-Year-Old Colt and Gelding Trot, or sparred for control, like Sylvia Hanover in the 3-Year-Old Filly Pace. Others opted to stalk pacesetters and made their winning move late in the mile, like Southwind Tyrion in the Open Trot and Bythemissal in the Open Pace.

Last October at Woodbine Mohawk Park, closers also dominated the 2022 Breeders Crown. Every 2-year-old champion (Gaines Hanover, Sylvia Hanover, Special Way, and Ammo) overtook leaders in the 1,095-foot-long stretch. Even Dan Patch and O’Brien Horse of the Year Bulldog Hanover didn’t wire rivals in the Open Pace. He was second-over from fourth early and cleared after the half en route to his Canadian, Breeders Crown, and WMP track record-equaling 1:46.4s victory.

The only exceptions were King Of The North, who made front early and opened up late in the 3-Year-Old Colt and Gelding Trot, and the explosive Ecurie D, who went gate-to-wire in the Open Trot.

WMP public handicapper Ghislain Paquet said that longer stretches play to the strengths of closers.

“Generally, the horse that likes to run on top of the field will be at a disadvantage with the final long stretch like Mohawk, Meadowlands or Hoosier…,” Paquet said. “The horse that prefers to come from behind will very often have an advantage on tracks that have a long final stretch. Everything here [at Mohawk] depends on the pace of the leaders at the first half-mile.”

Paquet has called races and handicapped at various Quebec and Ontario harness racetracks for over four decades, adapting his methods to the track size. At Mohawk, that means looking for closers: So far in the 2023 WMP meet, just 791 of 1950 races have been won by horses in front at the half, accounting for 40.6 per cent of total winners from Jan. 2 to Nov. 2. Horses on the lead at three-quarters won 866 races this season (44.4 per cent). The stretch drive has been the decider in the majority of races.

“Certainly, we cannot handicap a program presented on a seven-eighths- or one-mile track like the one presented on a half-mile track,” said Paquet. “It’s totally different. I much prefer horses that finish their race strong, hence the advantage of the long last stretch. I believe that the finals of the prestigious Breeders Crown should always be presented on a long homestretch track.”

There are fewer tracks equipped to host the Breeders Crown today, with varying stretch lengths. Woodbine Racetrack hosted multiple Breeders Crown events between 1994 and 2015, before standardbred racing made a permanent move to Mohawk in 2018. Woodbine’s harness track had a 976-foot stretch, shorter than The Meadowlands (990 feet), but considerably longer than other Breeders Crown venues like and Pompano Park (608 feet) and The Downs at Mohegan Sun Pocono (490 feet).

Former standardbred track Los Alamitos currently boasts the longest stretch in North America (1,380 feet). It hosted the 1986 Breeders Crown Open Pace, won by Forrest Skipper, who left the pocket near the :28.2 opening quarter and led the remainder of the 1:53.4m mile. Balmoral Park, which closed in 2015, had a 1,360-foot stretch.

Among active harness tracks, Hawthorne Racetrack’s 1,320-foot stretch is the longest.

In Canada, Century Mile holds that distinction at 1,280 feet.

Last November, WMP regular Doug McNair told HRU how the stretch length and track configuration at the Edmonton, AB track challenged participants in the 2022 Canadian National Driving Championship, which he won.

“When you see it for yourself, it’s probably one of the longest stretches for a mile track that you can possibly have,” McNair said. “It’s almost terrifying if you look at it from head on; it’s a pretty long stretch… This track’s completely different from Mohawk: It’s a mile track, so you’re leaving into the first turn even faster than you would at The Meadowlands, because it’s right there, and it’s such a long stretch. It’s tough to get them out of there from the outside, as opposed to Mohawk, where you get almost a quarter-mile after you leave the gate, so it’s more racing early at Mohawk than there would be at this track.”

With only one Woodbine Mohawk Park-based driver winning a 2023 Breeders Crown final at Hoosier Park and both being seven-eighths-mile tracks, the added stretch length at the latter would seem to be a factor. Jiggy Jog S and Sylvia Hanover were the only repeat 2022-23 Breeders Crown winners, but many other divisional champions from last year did not race this year, as they retired to stud.

WMP handicapper Paquet said differences in the stretch length between the two Breeders Crown venues seems to have played a role in the 2023 results: “It’s true, but I don’t necessarily see the reason.”

Bob McClure provided clarification. As the driver who won the Breeders Crown at Mohawk and Hoosier with the same horse, Sylvia Hanover, he offered a unique perspective on how, and how much, stretch length matters.

“Personally, I prefer the stretch and the track shape at Hoosier,” McClure said. “It’s not so much the length of the stretch; it’s the last turn. The track shape at Mohawk is not very favoring for back-end horses and it’s not the stretch, believe it or not. It’s all the last turn. It’s so big and swooping that the first-over horse can’t really make up any ground. They have to work so hard. At Hoosier, they’re small, tight turns; you can get in and then get right back out, and that makes it a lot easier for the backfield and all them [horses] coming up.

“As far as the stretch itself, I don’t think it’s a huge difference. I do love the passing lane at Hoosier though; I think that makes a big difference.”

Trip is influenced more by the turn for home than the homestretch distance, making Hoosier the more competitive track, in McClure’s view.

“Horses don’t have to grind their way first up through almost a quarter-mile [final] turn like they do at Mohawk,” he said. “It’s just a real poor design, really: You know, you get into the [WMP final] turn right around the time a horse would have to move first-up or second-over, and it just wears on them, because they go for so long.”

That turn, not the stretch, leads to a specific bias at his home track, noted McClure: “I find Mohawk very, very front-end biased. Like I say, I attribute it entirely to that last turn. If I had my way, they’d either make that turn smaller or make it a mile track, one or the other.”

Bettors and spectators may not be factoring in the amount of energy required to sustain a horse around Mohawk’s last turn, instead blaming drivers if the horse loses ground down the stretch.

“People complain about the [slow] middle half at Mohawk, but put yourself in the perspective of the horse that’s in front, who knows the horse first-up can’t take a big run at him because they’ve got that huge turn,” said McClure. “The horse that’s first-up has to conserve as much energy as they can, because they’ve got almost a quarter-mile on the outside, so that’s what leads to the slow third quarters and middle halfs.”

The 2019 Dan Patch Rising Star Award winner said the passing lane, not the stretch length, most influenced his drives on 2-year-old pacing colt and gelding Breeders Crown elim winner Storm Shadow, who closed for show in the final at odds of 21-1.

“I got away third or fourth, with good horses in front of me [in the final],” McClure said. “I decided to ride it out, where if we were at Mohawk, probably I’d pull first-up [so] I don’t take a chance of never getting out. At Hoosier, you know you’re going to get out. He shook through up the inside and he’s third… I was pretty happy with where I ended up.”

McClure said his favorite Breeders Crown locations aren’t dictated by stretch length, or even track size. “We had Mohawk last year,” he said. “I really like the Hoosier–Meadowlands–Mohawk [rotation]. I think all three are great hosts and I like seeing it on a big track. I wasn’t a real big fan of having it at Pocono. They could always reopen Pompano!”  

For him, it all comes down to allowing underdogs and overlays to have their chance to shine. They did just that Oct. 28 and 29 at the track he nicknamed “the graveyard of favorites”: “One thing I really like about Hoosier is the best horse always has a shot at winning.”