Will AI & Historical Racing help kill harness racing?

On December 24, 1877, Thomas Edison filed a patent application for his latest invention—the phonograph.

It consisted of a metal cylinder with a fine spiral groove, two diaphragm-and-needle units and a small horn.

The two units were—one for recording and one for playback.

The cylinder was rotated by handle while someone spoke into the recording horn and the sound produced by the horn caused the diaphragm to vibrate, driving the stylus to form grooves into a tin foil wrapped around the cylinder.

Can’t you just picture Edison in his lab…day-after-day, month-after month, year-after year, slaving away to invent this contraption?

“To even come up with an idea like this is genius.

So, what in the wide-wide-wide-wide world of sports has this to do with harness racing?

Read on, my friends, read on.

About 10 years later, the first cylinder records were made replacing the one Edison invented in the first place, which could be played only one single time.

A couple of years after that, phonograph parlors began in San Francisco, enabling people to order a selection of recordings for a nickel.

By the mid-1890’s, nearly every American city had least one music parlor.

Some 18 years later, in the fall of 1895, the Berliner Gramophone Company was the first to market the first flat disc recordings.

It was a complicated process—at that time—lateral grooves placed into surfaces of wax coated zinc discs immersed in chromic acid.

I, certainly, do not understand the process, but somebody was smart enough to make it happen.

From cylinder records, to the thick, flat 78 RPM Edison records to the one sided 78 RPM records to the two-sided 78’s 50 years later…then on to the 45 rpm records to long playing albums to cassettes to our recently available Compact Discs.

So what!

They’re all obsolete…even the most recent Compact Discs, now obsolete and replaced by USB Flash Drives or, as many say, thumb drives, which can hold hundreds of songs and files of info.

Those inventions in the music industry alone came to fruition because of the genius in these pods of very smart people.

So why the lengthy dissertation about this?

Answer: To show the painstakingly long time it took for an original idea like Edison’s phonograph that came from “thin air” to fruition—years and years—and compare them to the inventions of today, which appear at speeds unfathomed in history.

Harness racing is no different.

It took over 100 years (when Messenger arrived at our shores) to achieve the first 2:00 mile…and, when the immortal Dan Patch paced in the “disallowed” time of 1:55 in 1903, it took some 35 years for Billy Direct to even match that mark, which was allowed.

And, yes, it was more than 40 years to get to the Niatross. TT of 1:49.1 and, today, that time is “ho-hum” and we’re just a wisp away—four lengths—from an unfathomed mile in 1:45.

Talk about literal “breakneck” speed.

Now, artificial intelligence (AI) is coming into play at breakneck speed, as well, affecting just about every living person, the medical and the pharmaceutical industry, business and sport in this world.

It’s when robotics takes over for humans…as smartphones have done for many…and automobiles have begun to do.

“AI” is “making us a “stupider” (as my New York friend, Hughie, says) and lazier,

“Instead of learning things ourselves by studying,” he says, “we ask “f……. Siri!”

In other words, artificial intelligence may have a tendency to weaken our brain.

Who knows?

In more recent, modern times, part of this artificial intelligence has surfaced in Historic Horse Racing Slots, enabling those that have an affinity to our equine friends to place wagers on, yes, races that have already taken place.

As “AI” begins to play a role in harness racing, breeders will quite possibly use that knowledge to find the new “golden cross” to achieve that impossible milestone of 1:40, which is still “an impossible” 29 lengths away—just as Billy Direct’s mile was 46 lengths away from the “impossible” current record of 1:45.4.

Don’t say it’ll never happen…IT WILL HAPPEN…not in my lifetime but, certainly in Carson Conrad’s, Brett Beckwith’s, Braxton Boyd’s, Geremy Bobbitt’s, Atlee Bender’s and Marvin Luna’s, among the few others in their 20’s these days.

Today’s speed is having a dramatic effect on our sport already in  terms of field size, career longevity and the way our sport is contested as we take strategy off the table and replace it with nothing BUT speed.

“What’s killing our sport,” Hughie says, “is that there is no value anymore…shorter fields…shorter prices…it’s a horseman’s sport now, not a spectator sport…and that will kill it.

“Historic Horse Racing machines offers better value in terms of payoffs, no ‘drags’ or 25 minutes between races and you can handicap them, as well!

“It’s a no-brainer,” Hughie says.

But what about the anticipation of that 1:45 mile?

“Who cares?” lamented Hughie.

“If you think any bettor cares about a 1:45 mile, you are sadly mistaken! We care about one thing…cashing tickets. That’s IT!

“LIke I have said before, us punters will bet on two cock-a-roaches crossing 45th street…we’re gamblers.

“If you think harness racing is important, well, it is, but to so few of us…and only because of the betting! We have been forgotten!

“If I couldn’t bet on ‘em, I wouldn’t care about it at all.

“You know who cares, the driver, trainer and the owner.”

Harnesslink then asked, “What about the breeder?”

“Yes, the breeder, too…and the breeder could care less after the three-year-old year! The difference in this breed is amazing and no longer is one of durability. It’s been bred right out of them.”

Hughie has significant points and also reminds that, with Historical Racing Machine now in play, it remains to be seen how long legislatures and casino will be willing to support a sport that shows little inclination of wanting to help itself.

“Hey, I own a few shares of stock and I know that if a company can find a way to save $20 million a year somehow, they’ll do it! And getting rid of racing is one way! Just take a look at Florida.

Hughie went on to say, “On special days like Hambletonian Day or Breeders Crown days, the tracks go all out to put on a show. But the rest of the time…nothing…except weak betting pools with a 25 percent takeout and drag times that put you to sleep.

“I’m gonna tell you something to wake you up. Harness racing might be important to you…but it’s really not important at all to very many of us anymore.

“Football…important…they make it important…You can bet on whether the next play will be a running play or a pass…whether the runner will make a five year gain…whether the coin toss will be heads, tails or land on its side!”

“They make it important.

“Baseball, too. Their Commissioners do things and make deals that are worth billions.

“They are in the headlines during the season and even the off-season.

“Soccer is getting very big…even women’s sports.

“Harness racing…not so much.

“Years ago, I was at a casino in the Bahamas and they had a horse racing machine with five horses in there that paid up to 200 to 1.

“The manager there said, ‘One day, these machine will be all over the place!’

“I told him he was nuts…but he was right…and I believe that these machine will be prominent sooner than later.

“This Artificial intelligence stuff will give chemists new chances to concoct up new hypes to gain an edge with nobody to police them or stop them because it costs money, and they don’t invest it in ways to further the sport.

“What about thoroughbred racing?”

Bob says, “They don’t breed so much for speed. They do have their problems, but their fields remain fairly strong and there is still some value when the field size is nine or more

“Look,” I’m 75 now and just look around, you’ll see everyone around me within a stone’s throw of my age…no new blood.

“It’s a real shame…and I’m glad to have enjoyed it when it was in its prime…and not ruined by this artificial intelligence stuff and these new Horse Racing Historical machines which, by the way, I’m on my way to play right now!

May The Horse Be With You!

by John Berry, for Harnesslink