The Swedish-American dream

Unpacking why Swedish trainers have had so much success in the Hambletonian.

by Thomas Hedlund

Why are Swedish trainers so dominant in North America?

That is a question you occasionally hear in Swedish harness racing circles. My answer is that dominant is probably the wrong word. What we are really seeing is something much simpler: some damn good Swedish horsemen packed their bags, crossed the Atlantic in search of opportunity, and then figured out how to succeed in the land of dreams.

Jimmy Takter, Håkan Wallner and Berndt Lindstedt together with Jan Johnson, Per Eriksson, Nancy Takter, and now Marcus Melander. All Swedish-born trainers who have won the Hambletonian at The Meadowlands.

And no, I haven’t forgotten Marcus’ uncle Stefan Melander, who came over from Sweden in 2001 and won the Hambletonian with Scarlet Knight. As it happens, that was also the only Hambletonian I have ever attended in person.

Of all those Swedish trainers, Marcus Melander might be the most unlikely Hambletonian winner.

Not because his victory on Saturday (Aug. 8) came out of nowhere — he had been knocking on the door before — but because when he originally left Sweden for North America, he did so with far fewer accomplishments on his résumé than the other Swedish horsemen who eventually became successful trainers here.

What Melander has built since arriving in America is remarkable. Year by year, his stable has grown into something that, yes, could fairly be described as one of the dominant trotting operations in North America.

Nobody in Sweden should be surprised by the success of Åke Svanstedt. Many Swedish harness fans regard Svanstedt as perhaps the greatest trainer that the cold, northern European country has ever produced. So why wouldn’t he succeed in America?

Wallner and Lindstedt had already won virtually everything there was to win in Europe before moving their operation across the Atlantic some 40 or 45 years ago.

And we haven’t even mentioned Sören Nordin.

Nordin never won the Hambletonian, but he was the undisputed king of Swedish harness racing before Stig H. Johansson began his rise to the top in the late 1970s. When Nordin moved to Florida around that same time, Johansson became the dominant force in Sweden.

Looking back now, with all those careers complete, Johansson might be the one truly great Swedish trainer who never made the move abroad.

There is little reason to believe he wouldn’t have adapted to North American racing.

Victory Tilly, Peace Corps, and Armbro Keepsake are only a few of the horses Johansson won with on American soil. Swedish harness racing should probably be thankful that the greatest of them all remained at home.

Maybe the Americans should be thankful, too.

Jimmy Takter, however, still stands above every other Swedish trainer in North American harness racing. Matching his collection of major victories with trotters will take some doing.

But that brings us back to the original question: Do Swedes really dominate American trotting?

Perhaps it makes more sense to reverse the argument and look at Sweden itself.

Timo Nurmos was born in Finland, yet his accomplishments in Sweden have been enormous and almost countless. Fellow Finn Petri Puro, often working with a relatively small stable, managed to produce winners in many of Sweden’s most important classic races.

And just for fun, I looked at Sweden’s Breeders Crown.

The series has been contested since 1992 and, beginning in 1993, has featured four championship divisions. Over 33 years of four finals, plus the inaugural edition, that amounts to 134 Breeders Crown finals.

Trainers born outside Sweden have won 33 of those 134 races.

Almost exactly one quarter.

That’s not all that different from what we are seeing in North America today.

So, maybe the answer is not that Swedish trainers dominate American harness racing.

Maybe the answer is simply that great horsemen can develop great horses wherever they go, and those horses eventually show up in the races that matter most.

The horse tradition runs deep in the northern European countries.

Just as it does in America. And in America, the Swedish-American dream once again became true last Saturday.