Harness Racing and Trotting Betting and Sports Guide

Hails From The Assyrian Kings

As you might expect, the sport of harness racing finds its origins in the chariot racing of old. Taking place in ancient Greece, Roman and Byzantine times, chariot racing was immensely popular in its day.

It was included in the original Ancient Olympic Games and differed from the modern sport on account of the fact that it involved both 2 and 4 horses pulling the chariot. It remained popular until around the 7th century, at which point the decline of the Byzantine Empire coincided with the decline of both the economy and the population.

The sport can trace its origins back even further than that, with Assyrian Kings having stables for horses that would pull chariots both for sport and for use in war as far back as 1500 BC. Indeed, Homer’s Iliad featured a story of a chariot race and that typically dates to around 1200 BC.

The modern form of the sport traces its origins to the rather more recent time of the 18th century, with a race in Holland known as The Golden Whip dating back to 1777 and involving trotting rather than outright running. It was in the 19th century that trotting began to be taken seriously as a sport, particularly in North America.

The Sport Becomes More Established

Trotting matches had been taking place in Holland since 1554, but it was the creation of The Golden Whip that gave the sport more prestige. It emerged at the same time that Count Orlov in Russia began to create a strain of trotters at his stud farm that would go on to form the basis of the sport in Russia, whilst the Norfolk Trotter began to be seen as a good horse for road racing in England.

It’s road racing that helped to create trotting in North America, too. There were trotting tracks throughout the United States by the start of the 19th century, with one of the famous ones being in Harlem, New York. There a trotting horse named Yankee set the record by trotting the course in 2 minutes and 59 seconds, though this time came down in the years that followed. Harness racing began to develop by the middle of the century, with trotting having become an established sport by 1840.

The Grand Circuit & The Standardbred

Arguably the biggest impact on harness racing as a sport occurred in 1871 when the Grand Circuit was founded. The oldest continuing harness-racing event in the United States began life as a competition called the Quadrilateral Trotting Combination. Its first meetings took place in 1873 at courses in New York, Utica, Cleveland, Springfield and Buffalo, growing to be hosted at over 20 tracks nowadays.

The creation of the Grand Circuit was followed by the breeding of what became known as the standardbred horse, which was based on a standard performance time of 2 minutes and 30 seconds. This was established in 1879 and became as influential on harness racing in the US as thoroughbreds were on flat racing in the UK.

Nowhere can this be seen more clearly than in the English thoroughbred Messenger. Imported into the States in 1788, he sired 10 sons that went on to become the leading sires in trotting in America in the 19th century.

Trotting Spreads Around The Rest Of The World

Trotting was introduced to France in 1836, with Italy boasting cart racing since the start of the 19th century. The introduction of the French blood stock to the sport saw its popularity increase, with Belgium, Holland and Sweden all having harness racing by the 1880s. Austria and Germany followed suit before the turn of the century, with the United Kingdom being the only major European country not to take the sport to heart.

Nowadays Australia and New Zealand are 2 countries were trotting is the most popular, but they were late to take to this form of horse racing. Despite the fact that American stock was introduced to them both in the 19th century, it wasn’t really until the end of the 20th century that the sport began to take off. In the US, meanwhile, the great-grandson of Messenger, Hambletonian, sired more than 1,000 sons and daughters and become so influential on the sport that virtually all trotters in the States can be traced back to him.

The Sulky Is Invented

In the sport’s more formative years it could perhaps best be described as cart racing, because that’s exactly what the jockeys would sit in. Early in the 19th century the U-shaped sulky was introduced for the first time, weighting about 56 kilograms. This was rescued to more like 21 kilograms by the 1870s, but the developments to the vehicle didn’t stop there.

As the 1800s progressed the sulky had pneumatic tires and ball bearings introduced to it, with bicycle wheels replacing them in the 1890s. The drivers seat began to be lowered too, giving the device more aerodynamics. In 1903 Lou Dillon broke the 2-minute mile, which was bettered only 4 times until 1969. In part that record was down to the fact that the sulky that Lou Dillon carried weighed just 11.3 kilograms.

The Sport’s Decline And Renaissance

By the turn of the 20th century harness racing was immensely popular, boasting large attendances and the horses themselves having fans. Though it remained popular in Europe as the century progressed and the Grand Circuit still had plenty of supporters, harness racing’s popularity began to die down as the 20th century progressed. It wasn’t until Roosevelt Raceway in New York City began to offer pari-mutuel betting under the lights in 1940 that the tide started to turn.

As betting under the lights started to entice a new audience, the invention of the mobile starting gate in 1946, which allowed an even running start for all horses, sae the sport began to regain its place in the public consciousness. In the decades after that the attendance at harness racing in the US virtually tripled, seeing similar expansions in New Zealand, Australia and in Europe.

Nowadays there are major centres for harness racing in the likes of Chicago and Los Angeles as well as Toronto and Montreal. Some of the sport’s biggest competitions were created in the 20th century, proving it’s a modern sport if anything.

Harness racing’s growth continued into the 1980s, with a pace race at Meadowlands at the start of that decade being worth more than $2,000,000 in prize money. Problems began to arise when the amount of money involved in the sport saw over-racing of horses and drugs that should have been used for medical purposes instead being used to corrupt the sport. That’s not to suggest that things have slowed down all that much, simply that it has become a more regulated sport in recent times in order to combat these things.

Are Trotting & Harness Racing The Same Thing?

A quick note at this point to draw your attention to the fact that harness racing is sometimes referred to as trotting, especially by bookmakers. Indeed, you’ll note that we’ve already referred to trotting elsewhere on the page as though it’s the same sport as harness racing and that’s because it basically is.

We’ll explain in this next section the difference between the two types of harness races, of which trotting is one. The only thing that you need to know at this stage is that if you see a bookmaker referring to ‘trotting’ on their pages then they mean the type of harness racing event in which horses trot, as opposed to the one in which they pace.