Could TV docuseries hold the key to taking harness racing mainstream?
by Bob Duff
My arrival as a harness racing writer wasn’t a natural progression. Our newspaper’s racing writer was retiring. I’d filled in for him during his vacation time and found enjoyment covering the sport, so I asked to take over following his departure.
At the time, my technical knowledge of the sport could’ve been written down on the head of a pin. But what I’d learned in my brief tenure as a harness racing writer was that such knowledge wasn’t mandatory in order to tell its stories. This was a sport that was rich with untapped stories waiting to be told. For someone who loved being a storyteller, this was beyond an exciting opportunity.
Over the years, every person I’ve ever exposed to a night of harness racing couldn’t wait to get another chance to go to the track. And I lost count over the years of how many writers sent grudgingly to cover a race that I’d been able to convince them that this was going to be easy.
The beauty of harness racing from the point of view of the storyteller is that every horse has a story to tell.
Make that stories to tell. The groom. The trainer. The owner. The driver. And of course, the horse. If you’re sent to write about a racehorse and can’t find a story, then you’re just not trying.
From the point of view of someone who’s written about the sport now for more than 30 years, this has always been opportunity knocking. Someone might not be able to distinguish between a trotter and a pacer, but everyone can be drawn in by a compelling storyline. And harness racing offers a never-ending wealth of tales to tell.
GOING BEHIND THE SCENES
A friend and a family member are today both intense Formula One fans. Not all that long ago, they couldn’t have distinguished Max Verstappen from Max Scherzer.
So, what happened? Both began watching the behind-the-scenes F1 docuseries on Netflix, and they got drawn into the sport until they were hooked. Further docuseries on Sunderland’s soccer team and Six Nations Rugby have spawned similar growth in interest from demographics that previously might not have given those sports the time of day.
The selling point behind developing every interest is investing in the people who are the backbone of the sport. It’s about pulling back the curtain to give the audience exposure and access to the drama and compelling issues behind the scenes. That’s what drew people in and got them to invest their valuable time into following these sports.
Horse racing is beginning to explore this path and we’re here to say keep it going.
Woodbine’s Free Rein serieson YouTube is providing an all-access to the “Sport of Kings” at Canada’s No. 1 thoroughbred track. It’s all about putting a face to the sport. Telling the back stories of jockeys, of horses, of major events.
Likewise, OLG’s Unfiltered Series provided viewers with similar access to horse racing in Ontario like it has never been showcased before.
With both of these online docuseries, it’s enabling viewers to put faces to the people who are behind the horse. By making that horse more than just a number in the program with past performance results, you’re building an audience, giving them a rooting interest beyond the fact that they might have a wager backing that horse in a specific race.
IDEAL EXPOSURE FOR HARNESS RACING
If there’s a sport that’s filled with stories waiting to be told, it’s harness racing. We recently were offered a wonderful cross-sport experience as Dale Hunter coached the OHL London Knights to the Memorial Cup while at the same time seeing his pacer Crack Shot compete in the $1 million North America Cup.
Truth be told, you could find a compelling story every race day simply by wandering into the backstretch and asking some questions about any horse. As the OLG noted in its release on the Unfiltered series, “the road to the winner’s circle is a bumpy one filled with twists and turns that are unexpected, and that’s what makes the journey so exciting. With races taking place every day there are many stories unfolding that you can experience.”
These are stories that harness racing needs to be delivering to a mass audience. As we’ve seen with other so-called niche sports, exposing that sport to people that otherwise might not give the sport a second glance is proving to be a formula for building a wider audience for those sports.
The aforementioned horse racing docuseries are a great starting point. Now let’s keep building.
The next step is to get harness racing on to a major streaming platform like Netflix or Amazon Prime. As someone who was originally drawn to the sport by its back stories, there’s no telling how much it could mean to the growth of harness racing’s future if it were to give people access to those stories through such mainstream exposure.
