A passive beginning and romantic attraction create a harness racing fanatic
by Frank Cotolo
“We have met the enemy and he is us,” said Walt Kelly’s comic-strip character Pogo. It is a phrase adapted from an American Naval Commander in the War of 1812. Pogo’s version became a popular one over the ages. I figure it is because it recognizes a deep flaw in the human behavior of challenges: mankind’s tendency to create its own problems.
I began to realize over time that I awoke the winner, the hero, the loser, and the villain, in my heart and mind from the moment I learned anything true about loving and betting pari-mutuel horse racing.
My introduction to the hero and villain in me came from an unknown source; an unexplained endearment of the actions themselves in the scenarios of horse racing. Moreover, was the particular kind of horse racing. “The horses with the carts behind them,” some ragged Brooklyn fella said to me. Yes. Those. The ones under the lights on evenings that dismiss rain and sleet and snow.
Are the terms of endearment ever listed when someone is attracted to anyone or anyplace or anything? For me the connection was not just unknown; it held no immediate reason to be explained; as well as it had nothing to do with spending money or for that matter gambling with money. That made it romantic and attractive and entertaining. And opened to incite my good and bad sides.
At first, I was passive; an observer enjoying the color and the sounds and the visual action of harness racing. It presented ingredients that appealed to me more than did thoroughbred racing. Standardbreds appeared internally in tune with their human partners; their drivers were not limited to a certain size or weight like thoroughbred jockeys who I thought for all due purposes were going along for the ride as opposed to being a horse’s powerful pathfinder.
Such an equal partnership of man and beast was needed to maneuver over a mile of dirt with a different measure of accuracy than man on a beast’s back while racing; because the standardbreds were bigger and stronger than the gallopers and were in greater danger of collision than the usual stampeding runners. I saw the standardbreds as super equines; rustic, durable, stalwarts, Paladins.
That is how I saw it.
And that is the way I liked it.
“They’re old-timers’ horses,” said a Brooklyn bettor who “played the ponies” and defended the runners with undocumented allegiance. “Them buggied nags are steered by old-timers with shaky hands that ain’t all so honest. It ain’t natural for a horse to race fast as it can with that much influence.”
“Oh yeah? Well, that buggy driver is not just the rider; he is also the pathfinder. A driver’s calculation of steering a mile is meticulous; his miscalculation could result in severe injury and death of man and/or beast. Strength over speed, I say. A standardbred driver could always beat a jockey in arm-wrestling match.”
As well, I thought beyond argument, the drama and the conflict of each standardbred race was a moment-by-moment thing. No matter the class of the horse or the stack of the purse money to be won it was exciting. And nothing stopped it. Not the falling snow or the pouring rain.
By the time such romantic elements pleased me in ways that produce dopamine-like euphoria it was harness racing affecting me most of all the sports I could enjoy as a passive observer; including the thoroughbreds racing or the dogs racing or the autos racing; or baseball or football or hockey or soccer, et al. And the more harness racing I watched the more I embraced the sheer entertainment they provided.
I did not question or search for the forces igniting my enthusiasm. Nor did I realize that this courtship could become deeper if I began to accurately measure and compare the abilities of each standardbred in each race in order to wager upon them. Win or place or show? Daily Double or Exacta? Triples? How much and how often?
The very action of wagering is what moves most people to horse racing. The common man was a gambler in many ways and bought “action” somehow if it was legal or not. Without the proper training action without knowledge brought out the enemy in oneself. A person needs the knowledge to beat the enemy within. To stay ahead of the game. To profit from the knowledge.
All right, I said to myself. Meet the enemy. Handicap harness races for money.
