Marketing for your life!

      I admit I'm not a very well educated person, but, even I can see that harness racing needs to market itself better! I was flipping around on the sports headlines on Foxsports.com and went into the horse racing section. Apparently, the only horses that race are thoroughbreds! There are 10 pages of racing headlines and I only saw one that related to harness racing. That was about Jeff Gural making a deal to keep the Hambletonian at the Meadowlands; and that was a few months ago. From being around this business almost my entire life I know we are not that boring!
        Yonkers just finished with the Levy series and the Blue Chip Matchmaker featuring See You At Peelers; The Meadowlands is just starting their championship meet and the open pacers and trotters are absolutely phenomenal! We have sire stakes action beginning in most of the states in the northeast this week as well as some minor stakes at The Meadowlands and the only people who know about this stuff are the people that are already involved in racing. The Hambletonian, our sports pinnacle event, won't even be on TV this year!
       There are hundreds of great stories within the sport and nobody knows. I don't think you can say nobody cares, they just are not made aware that we even exist! Whether you like or dislike the Burke Stable you have to admit that their achievements over the past decade have been mind boggling! They have won more races per year, and more purse money than the leading driver in the past 2 years at least...and nobody outside our sport knows! Dave Palone is about to become the winningest driver in our sports history(over 15,000 wins)...and nobody knows! John Campbell continues to bounce back and compete at the highest level even as he ages...and outside our small world, nobody knows! I could go on and on, but, you get the idea. We have tons of stories to tell and I believe people would like to hear about them if we marketed ourselves properly.
     Here is the thing. We are dying a slow death and nobody is doing anything about getting the word out that we exist. If what's happening in Canada and Pennsylvania with regard to the slot money being taken away doesn't open our eyes what will?? At any racino we are looked upon as a necessary evil and that's the ugly truth! We have to get people talking about harness racing and getting excited about what this sport has to offer, or we can all look at the backup plan a few years down the road....McDonalds is always hiring!!