by Bob Carson

Editor’s Note: The USTA website is pleased to present freelance writer Bob Carson and his popular “Outside the Box” features. This monthly series is a menu of outlandish proposals presented with a wink — but the purpose behind them is serious. The views contained in this column are that of the author alone, and do not necessarily represent the opinions or views of the United States Trotting Association.

Bob Carson

Bill Veeck once said that there are only two seasons to life — baseball and winter. Harness racing has just one season — and in some respects that might diminish us. We do not have a start or stop date.

We all know the college football season begins in late August, builds to a crescendo and culminates with the bowl games on New Year’s weekend. We know that baseball begins in the spring and ends in October. Golf and tennis have four majors, the first major begins the true season and the final major basically signals the end of the season.

Efforts to extend traditional sports season such as winter baseball, summer football, gimmicky golf and tennis play after the grand finale of the true seasons have failed. Fans and customers, even rabid ones, seem to prefer a respite to recharge their sporting batteries.

You name the game, they have an opening day, clear markers in between and a closing day. Maybe, in our quest to become self sufficient and to become relevant as a sport and not just a gamble, we need to step off of our confusing treadmill.

Should there be a coup in harness racing land, wouldn’t you enjoy being the new despot and decree a schedule commanding all horse fans to dance to your tempo. Mine would look like this:

December, January and February harness racing will not take place above the Mason Dixon Line. Many of us who enjoy the sport self-impose a moratorium on racing after the fall yearling sales. My moratorium lasts until late spring, when reports drift out and 3-year-olds have shaken off the rust.

For the few who cannot live without placing a bet on a pacer or trotter, it is possible we could keep a pilot light on in California and Florida. Otherwise, trainers and gamblers can skip the holidays and the polar vortex of January and February. No longer would we be subjected to the dreary sight of horses slogging through the sleet in front of three people.

March is sort of a warm-up month, a preseason where qualifying and racing begins.

April to August we really get rolling. No 2-year-olds will race. The 3- and 4-year-olds will shine. The 3-year-old stakes racing (maybe even some 4-year-old stakes), featured races, and lots of great stuff that is coordinated so races do not step on each other’s parades.

September is the apex. We schedule our big events throughout the month of September, before the World Series, before college football ramps up and still early in the pro-football madness. Our own clear “grand slam” or “playoffs” could be decided upon and implemented. At this point, the 3- and 4-year-olds take a break and clear the field for a new and intriguing interlude.

September through November is when we re-focus and take a breath. Then all eyes turn to this ground-breaking short season where new faces are front and center. A compressed season for 2-year-old stakes racing does not begin until September and ends in November. This 2-year-old season runs concurrently with the sales season.

For many of us, our favorite part of harness horse racing is when 2-year- old horses near qualifying and then attempt to qualify. We enjoy the new crop of racehorses beginning to reveal whether or not dreams are going to come true. The dawn of these young racehorses always makes our old sport feel fresh. This special time does not have to be in June.

An obvious benefit of moving the 2-year-old season to the beginning of September would be that the babies have more time to get ready and less time to break down.

Implementing a schedule like this would give our sport focus. A harness racing season would have clear markers. We could build to crescendos and not be a monotonous hum. We could find what many sports have found, that anticipation is a large part of the recipe for interest.

As an owner, the wait for that first 2-year-old race would be delayed, but those miserable winter training bills could be eliminated. Four legs and a final of sires stakes or stallion series type races will be squeezed into the short 2-year-old season. Even if a 2-year-old did not have any luck in October or November, the 3-year-old season is not too far away in this new schedule.

For the breeding farms, coordinating this later season of 2-year-olds with the yearling sales season is not an accident. Customers will have appetites whetted watching the youngsters race. Also, late foals would no longer be automatically crossed off a buyer’s list. The whole concept of yearlings in the marketplace while their 2-year-old offspring are racing might jazz things up.

November, after the sales are over, the 2-year-old flurry is over and the snow flurries arrive, we turn down the burner. Like other sports, we take a pause before the next season begins.

This concentrated season just sounds good, but money might support this madness. If gamblers and owners have this break from the treadmill, interest and promotional opportunities might increase.

Traditionalists will point out problems (of which there will be many; the main one that would need to be wrestled with would be fair racing). A chorus of, “But what about…” will have many well-reasoned comments.

We all know this revamped racing season schedule is unlikely for a sport that, for many good reasons, does not, or cannot, coordinate on a regular basis. Small changes are difficult, but cataclysmic changes to a hundred year old sport may be impossible. Imagining, speculating and jawboning on the backstretch are free. Kicking around new ideas can help pass the upcoming long, cold, dreary, depressing winter months of harness horse racing.

But, a case can be made for taking a hiatus for a few months.