by Trey Nosrac

The galaxy of things that I do not understand is vast. For example:

• Cryptocurrency.

• Why can I not remember one of my sixty-three passwords?

• Why do I constantly lose the sheet of paper with my sixty-three passwords?

• Why don’t the passwords work when I find the paper?

• Quantum Physics.

• Why are single shoes in the middle of a freeway?

• Why does my dog sleep in my car for hours yet wake up three blocks from my house?

• Bluetooth connections.

• Why do I have an infatuation with harness horse racing?

• Why do earbuds not stay in my ears for more than nine seconds?

• Why do people behind me aggressively honk one nanosecond after the light turns green?

Allow one more puzzler. You may have an answer. Somewhere in the answer might be a clue that will help our sport grow. Why don’t the star horses and signature horse races excite me?

Writing about harness racing has been part of my scribbling for two decades. Volumes about the sport have been printed and posted with my fingerprints all over the crime. Occasionally, I receive a ballot asking my opinion on Horse of the Year, Breeder of the Year, Stallion of the Year, Broodmare of the Year, 2-Year-Old Filly Pacer of the Year, etc.

I often don’t recognize the horses on the ballot. Along these lines, if you ask me to name the top 10 money-winning harness racehorses from last year, I might be able to name two. That is so weird and somewhat inexplicable. It is like a baseball writer or a rabid baseball fan unfamiliar with Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, or Mike Trout.

A possible partial answer for my lack of knowledge of top equine performers is that my young horse spent the summer racing in a state racing program. Therefore, I focused on a specific category of horses of the same age, sex, and gait that we compete against. In this case, I will soon have every one of three hundred competing 2-year-old trotting fillies committed to memory and know what each horse is doing at every level, from sires stakes to fair racing. I will pay serious attention whenever a competitor is going behind the gate.

Of course, self-interest and having skin in the game will always focus minds, but that answer is not satisfactory. Many of us are highly attuned to our home team and players in a baseball or football season. However, our interest in our home baseball or football team does not preclude us from having knowledge or interest in the national scene.

To some of us, “Big” races are just another race. “Big” race is a relative term. If you race on the fair level, a big race is the state fair championship. No magic fills our souls in national races where unknown horses are blazing miles at ridiculous speeds. Speed and earnings do not fascinate us. Why do we care whether Master Of The Universe, Temple Of Doom, or Blasphemy wins the million-dollar race? Why do we care which horse is the fastest in the land? We never run into or race against these national horses as competitors, so they may as well be racing on the moon.

In other sports, we seem to be able to find something to push our interest buttons. I always cheer for Northwestern College. Why? Thirty years ago, a buddy of mine played for the Northwestern Wildcats. The team wears simple blue and white uniforms, and I believe (perhaps delusionally) that the players at Northwestern are more student-athletes and fewer mercenaries. So, I adopt this college team every year, which is ridiculous.

It is human nature to find a reason NOT to remain neutral while watching a sporting event between two teams or two athletes. And these days, we can easily wager to reinforce our often-illogical choices. In a horse race, a bet is usually the only thing that pushes our brain off neutral. That ability to wager is an advantage horse racing once had, which is losing steam.

The contradiction and the crux of the matter for some of us is that our passion for harness horse racing seems to have a blind spot about getting jazzed up for famous horses that race around for a few fleeting seasons. It is not just the horses; the power of significant race events like the Hambletonian or Yonkers Trot does not entice most of us. If you staked me to the rack and held a flame to my feet, I could not even NAME five big races (there seem to be dozens).

There are too many categories in horse racing competing for my limited attention. When you factor in two ages in stakes racing, the number of viable harness racing states, two gaits, two sexes, two nations, numerous levels of programs, and then toss in some European racing – do the math, it’s something like 2x6x2x2x3x2. That makes for a LOT of big races and a LOT of top horses that pretty much look alike. For my squirrel-like attention span, one sex, gait, age, state, and racehorse are less taxing and more engaging.

The mantra has long been, “The horses in the top races are our stars, and we should hook our fortunes to them.” I say neigh. The elusive buttons that prompt engagement in the human mind rely on more than that.

However, now I need to find one of my missing passwords to open my Pathways account and look up the names of the top money earners from last season and the essential harness races of various sexes, gaits, ages, and places that fail to engage me. Then, I will drive out to visit my 2-year-old trotter in training, which highly engages me.