Blood on the tracks: Another Hambletonian on tap thanks to Hambletonian

by Frank Cotolo

A rare few following harness racing in New York City during the 1960s could identify the origin of the word Hambletonian; no less tell you it is the name of a horse; no less tell you the horse was a trotter; no less tell you an international horse race is named after that trotter.

“It ain’t any race at Yonkers,” said one punter.

“They don’t run that at Roosevelt, do they?” said another.

“Is it a pace or a trot?” said one more.

I am among those whom I would demean about the word Hambletonian. Living in Brooklyn at that time did not expose the general betting public to harness racing across the country. To that audience a drive to Freehold Raceway in New Jersey was a trip demanding much planning to witness and bet on harness racing live.

Times change. For better or worse. But I bet there are still a slew of people up and down the East Coast — them being somewhat standardbred aware — unable to tell you that every harness horse on the planet owes its life to the horse named Hambletonian.

“What’s a Hambletonian, anyway?” said a bettor, looking over my shoulder reading this article.

“The horse called Hambletonian was the resident of a place called Hambleton Hills,” I said. “In the 1700s lots of racehorses took their names based on their birthplaces or training grounds.”

That was not so important. What matters is that Hambletonian has significance because every living standardbred’s bloodline can be traced to him. When I discovered that fact I was as amazed as impressed. Having traced my own bloodline to generations barely able to walk upright ignited my astonishment.

My first Hambletonian race took place at The Meadowlands during my first full-time journalist job for the sport. The event ended in a dead heat between Park Avenue Joe and Probe. The 1989 edition was still defined by winning multiple miles: “heats.” It was a format new to Brooklyn harness rubes such as myself.

As I learned more about the race’s namesake, I embraced the history of the sport with reverence, because history matters. I learned that reality long before I won my first bet at Yonkers Raceway. For any subject studied, its roots provide magnificent and detailed explanations of its who-what-where and -when. This state of mind inspired me to pay greater attention to the Hambletonians I missed before 1989.

My study era arrived at a fortunate time for me; I was on the inside of the sport as a journalist. I was able to witness the affairs in the same arena as did great sources; people active in the sport’s history still participating in breeding and training and owning and racing stalwart standardbred beasts.

I thought at first as a handicapper and bettor there would be little about pedigree able to influence my intricate skills; no less make me a buck or two. But the deeper I explored the individual studs the more I discovered I was wrong. The Hambletonian bloodline was affected by its foundation sire even a century later, but only in certain situations where I found them to my advantage that influenced my handicapping.

In the past few decades, the Hambletonian was as easy to handicap as most any overnight trot. In most cases the pedigree factor is moot; it basically does not provide an edge; unless you check sire statistics for the race entries’ 2-year-old records.

Sometimes the less-than-obvious current successful sophomores set to race in a Hambletonian are products of sires that have done exceptionally well with their freshman crop, percentage-wise. The betting public weighs heavily on current form for obvious reasons. One in particular is that there are few statistics on rates of improvement. Ignoring troubled trips is always important. But measuring improvement is a vague science.

Suffice to say that the fields of every Hambletonian present the season’s finest sophomore talents as to make handicapping the event a smart pass or a wise investment. In fact, the eliminations have often presented greater wagering values than the final; simply because those races include more of the season’s best sophomores.

And all are the blood-related trotters that produced the likes of Mack Lobell and Malabar Man and Windsong’s Legacy and Muscle Hill and Donato Hanover, etcetera, as well as the fillies like Continental Victory and Atlanta that defeated the colts fair and square, remain akin to those among the lesser-known standardbreds that raced weekly in claimers and ones like Molotov Memoirs (named after one of my books) that never make it to post at all.

Still the world is watching on that Saturday in August each year because in France and Germany and Sweden and Italy and even Russia there are hooves on the ground trotting their hearts away thanks to the founding heart of the breed, the son of thoroughbred King Fergus.