Home » Sports » Standardbred Horses » Down Under Differences in Standardbreds

Down Under Differences in Standardbreds

© Kimberly Rinker

Harness racing flourishes in Australia, just as it does in North America. While much of the racing is surprising similar, there are subtle differences which make a Yankee know that he is not on U.S. soil.

For instance, one of the obvious contrasts is that Australian tracks are typically half-mile or smaller, and the driving styles are different. As well, it is quite common practice to keep a guy parked on the outside, and is not seen as nasty a practice as it is in the U.S.

Australian sulkies are more like American jog carts, though they are narrower. They are angled differently and tend to suit the small tracks in Australian better than the wider racing sulkies we use in the States.

The drivers refer to their the places during the races as "tiers," and as in the States, often prefer to be in the "first tier."

In Australia no one stables at the race tracks. Most people have an acre or two of land where they keep their race horses, or they stable at training centers or at local farms. A typical day for a trainer would be to ship the horse to the track in the morning, jog 40 minutes or more, then return the horse to his home, hose him off, cool him down and leave him alone until that evening. If racing is at 7 p.m., the horse will arrive at the track at about 15 minutes before six o'clock. At a little past six, the horse will warm up a mile and a half, the walk for 20 minutes prior to racing.

Also, the Australian horsemen do a longer preliminary score. They walk their horses for nearly 15 minutes prior to going onto the track for a race, then have nearly 20 minutes of scoring down, at which time they make equipment adjustments.

With about three minutes to post, a warning whistle is sounded, and the drivers then get off the carts and make any gear adjustments in front of the grandstand. THey keep the horses walking in a small circle. Some use hobble shorteners...they are a piece of equipment used to help shorten the hobbles for a horse early in the race, then you can pull a string and let them out, if you want to. SO a horse can go from wearing a 56" hobble at the beginning of the mile to wearing a 58" or 60" hobble by the end of the race. This especially helps with rouge horses who are bad actors behind the starting gate.

The copyright of the article Down Under Differences in Standardbreds in Standardbred Horses is owned by . Permission to republish Down Under Differences in Standardbreds in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.