by Dean A. Hoffman

Bob Marks is one of the most perspicacious people in the sport. While others notice what’s on the surface, Marks sees beneath the surface.

So when the talented pacer McArdle was test bred at Perretti Farms in 2003, and seemed to thrive thereafter in his performances on the track, Marks realized that allowing horses to breed and race in the same season could help the sport immensely.

Marks has spent a lifetime following and studying harness racing and he employs his knowledge now in supervising operations at Perretti Farms in New Jersey.

“There has always been an old wives’ tale that you shouldn’t breed a stallion while he’s training and racing,” Marks said. “People thought that a horse was going to try to mount a mare during a race, but that just doesn’t happen. The Europeans have proven that this can be done in the right circumstances.”

McArdle was an example, Marks says. He was test bred at Perretti Farms and then “raced like an absolute bear” in winning the William Haughton Memorial at the Meadowlands.

“His trainer, Chris Ryder, said it seemed to agree with him, so we jumped McArdle four or five times that summer,” Marks said. The semen, however, was not used.

McArdle was retired at the end of that season, but Marks notes “A lot of horses get retired that could still be racing.”

Marks points out that top pacers like Lis Mara and Artistic Fella are two examples of horses that could race and breed and perhaps stay on the track for several years. He said that mares could be booked to stallions on an “as available basis” during the racing season.

“This would allow us to keep the stars of our sport on the track,” he said. “That’s good for the business.”

Marks admits that each horse is different. For example, Run The Table was test bred at the end of the 1987 racing season because it was expected he’d retire to stud. When he was instead raced in 1988, trainer Jim Campbell said that the horse seemed to lack interest in racing. Marks concedes that test breeding Run The Table may have hurt his racing performance.

Another person who feels that stallions should be permitted to breed mares during the same season they’re racing is Thomas A. Charters, president of the Hambletonian Society and Breeders Crown.

“This is one thing we can do to help fill races,” Charters, a former race secretary, said. “Short fields are a major problem for many tracks. If horses could be allowed to stay on the track while doing some breeding service, that would help tracks. We all know that having short fields affects wagering. ”

Charters believes that this probably would not apply to megastars such as Glidemaster or the chosen few at the top rungs of the sport.

“This is perhaps most suitable for the second-tier horses,” he said. “A guy may want to breed a few of his own mares or some mares owned by his friends and continue to race his horse.”

Charters is one of the most knowledgeable Americans in the traditions of European trotting, and he reinforces Marks’ statement that many horses at the highest level of harness racing in Europe do double duty. He pointed to Coktail Jet and Jag de Bellouet in France, and Scarlet Knight, the Swedish-owned star who won the 2001 Hambletonian, have both done it.

Charters and Marks believe that since stallions often do double duty in Europe with success there is no reason stallions in North America can’t do the same.