Stop screwing the bettors: Shoes off or on must be published in the program

On Sept. 4 at The Meadowlands, in elimination races for New Jersey-bred stakes races for trotters, four odds-on favorites lost. One was Apex, the top 3-year-old trotting colt in the sport. He was coming off a sparkling 1:49.2 win in the Hambletonian, which was the fastest Hambletonian ever. In the elimination race, Apex finished fourth beaten four lengths at 1-9. Other trotters that lost at short odds in the elimination races that night were Lifetime Dreamer, who finished third at 3-10 odds, Orchestra, second at 2-5 odds, Diabolic Hill, who lost at 3-5 odds. Of these four trotters, I’m pretty sure that three of them were “shoes on.” I’m not sure about the fourth one because that trainer isn’t known for taking shoes off in the first place.

I say “I’m pretty sure” because there’s no official record of these key changes. I can’t even go into any sort of database to find out which horses raced with shoes on or off.

Now, I figured that some of these trotters might not race as well as they did in their prior start and I mentioned it in my ustrotting.com Meadowlands picks that night, trying to warn bettors. The reason was because some of the trainers race their horses without shoes in stakes races, but they put the shoes back on when the purses are lower. As you know, it’s not necessary to win an elimination race – all you have to do is finish in the top four or five to qualify for the final (depending on the qualifications for that particular stakes race).

Most veteran harness racing fans and bettors are aware of this. That’s why elimination races tend to be bad betting races. You could argue that they should be non-betting races, because ideally, you don’t want to have races where the drivers and trainers aren’t doing their best to try and win the race. And there’s no question that in these elimination races, especially the trotting races, some of the trainers are definitely not trying their best to prepare their horse for a winning effort.

For years now, the only equipment change that we put in the track program and PPs are hopple changes. That’s important because some horses can improve sharply when adding hopples. We also put in Lasix changes. Again, this is because some horses can improve with Lasix. In the thoroughbreds, they put Lasix and blinker changes in the program and past performances.

Over the last 10 years or so, it’s become much more common to remove shoes on trotters, especially in stakes races. It can often make a huge difference. I would say that the only change I’ve ever seen that can improve a horse as sharply is a sulky change. For instance, back in 1976, the sport started to switch from the traditional wood sulkies to the “modified sulky.” There were races where only one or two horses had the modified sulky and the other horses had the wood sulky. The horses with the new sulky had a tremendous and unfair advantage. On a one-mile track, the modified sulky was probably a good two seconds faster, although it depended on the horse. Some horses improved more than others.

It’s the same with shoes off. It might not help every trotter, but some trotters improve by several lengths with the shoes off. In fact, many of the fastest trotting miles we’ve seen in recent years were accomplished with shoes off. And by the way, over the last 10 years or so, there have been many races where horses raced without shoes, at different racetracks, and it wasn’t reported at all.

This is a problem. Even though this is the biggest equipment change in harness racing, much more significant, in my opinion, than adding hopples, or Lasix, it’s not in the track program. In fact, many bettors have no idea about the shoes on/off. Some have never even heard of it. We have to be cognizant of the fact that most of the money is bet off track, either online or at simulcast centers. The only place you can find out which horses are removing or adding shoes is at the track, if you’re alert and listening to the equipment changes, or looking at the TV monitors prior to the races. And, as I mentioned, there’s no official record of it. As a professional handicapper, I like to have as much knowledge as possible available so I can do my best to analyze the races for the public.

I’m not the only person who’s aware of how bad this is. Like most things in harness racing that never seem to get fixed, we’ve talked about this before. One of the excuses we hear is that some of the trainers don’t like to decide on removing shoes until they “test” the track condition that day. The thing is, the trainers who do this, always seem to remove the shoes for the big races, so I’m not sure that’s a good excuse. I don’t have a problem with the trainers. If I trained trotters, I’d be inclined to do everything legally possible to get an advantage when the big money is on the line.

We shouldn’t screw the betting public like this. I’ll make my opinion on this clear: Either shoe changes have to be in the past performance program, or, all horses should race with shoes on. This isn’t a grey area. It’s bad. For some reason, once again, harness racing seems to forget that this is a pari-mutuel sport. Every day, millions of dollars are bet on harness races all over North America.

If there’s an equipment change that can help a horse go several seconds faster, it has to be in the track program. Period. That’s what the past performances are for: to provide the bettors with information so they can analyze the race. You can’t leave out things that can make a horse go faster.

It kind of looks like most harness tracks don’t care about the bettors. Who needs them? I don’t get it. Things like this leave me scratching my head in disbelief. Again, this is not a grey area – it’s bad for the bettors, and therefore it’s bad for the sport.

Bob Pandolfo / Northhampton, PA