Imagine the Kentucky Derby, but held at a fair. Not a state fair, the massive kind that attract acts like Aerosmith and Toby Keith. Not even the sort that draw Smash Mouth and Uncle Kracker. Think smaller. Think county fair, the kind with two dozen or so small rides–a pirate ship pendulum, a rickety Ferris wheel–and maybe the same number of food trucks and win-a-prize attractions.
Imagine a dilapidated grandstand, a well-kept but modest half-mile track, and a barn area where fans are not only allowed, but encouraged to enter the barns and get within a few feet of the equine athletes who will race later in the day. This is the Little Brown Jug, Harness racing's equivalent of the Derby.
Last week, Bill Finley, who runs the TDN's sister publication Harness Racing Update, asked if I was interested in covering this year's Jug. I grew up around Harness racing and had never been, so it was an easy decision. Following the conclusion of Book 4 last Tuesday at Keeneland, my girlfriend Ada and I packed up the car and headed 3 1/2 hours north to Delaware, Ohio, home of the Delaware County Fair and of the Little Brown Jug.
Some background. For 3-year-old pacers, the Jug, inaugurated in 1946, is held on the third Thursday after Labor Day. It's the second leg of the Pacing Triple Crown, falling between the Cane Pace at Tioga Downs and the Messenger Pace at Yonkers. Horses race in heats, a format that hasn't been used in Thoroughbred racing in well over a century. This year, there were two eliminations (sometimes there are three), each with eight horses. The first four across the wire in each advance to the final, held three races after the end of the second heat. Purses currently are $103,600 for each elim and $310,800 for the final. Elimination winners automatically are awarded the 1 and 2 holes in the final, a huge advantage on small half-mile tracks.
There's a big catch, though. If one of the two elimination winners doesn't win the final, then there's yet another step, a race-off between the three winners, to be held three races later.
So the winner of the Jug can, in theory, race three times in about three hours. Not just in theory, of course. It isn't uncommon. It happened in both 1999 and 2000. Pacing and galloping are apples and oranges, but still, that's a bit of a mind-blowing notion when in a day and age when Thoroughbreds returning off three weeks' rest are sometimes referred to be “wheeling back.”
The winners, and the drivers who got them home, have their name painted on a massive, 3 1/2-foot tall jug. The original, made of clay and weighing a (not literal) ton, ran out of room in 2005. The next year, a new jug was pressed into service. Pragmatism won out over tradition: it was made out of plastic.
Oh, why Little Brown Jug? It's a little unclear, but a local newspaper contest was held to name the race, which most probably was named after a drinking song written in 1869 and popularized by Glenn Miller in the post-prohibition era.
Like the song, the race is all Americana, and while other Harness stakes have bigger purses, nothing, other than maybe the Hambletonian for 3-year-old trotters, carries the cachet of the Jug.
The 2014 edition was rich in storylines. Could trainer Casie Coleman, one of the sport's leading trainers at just 34 who recently dropped 75 pounds courtesy a rigorous exercise routine, capture an unprecedented third straight Jug with her 12-time-winning millionaire McWicked? Could local hero Dave Miller, a Buckeye through and through, steer home his fourth Jug winner? Could the Cane Pace upsetter Lyonssomewhere, supplemented for $45,000, give the 35-year-old driver Yannick Gingras his first winner? Or would Jimmy Takter–Harness's version of Bob Baffert–send out his second? Last Thursday, a crowd of 41,000 gathered at the fair grounds to see these questions answered.
A few other notes about the fair grounds. There is no backstretch, really, or at least, there is no place where the public isn't. The barns on the backstretch sit next to corn dog venders, which sit next to rows and rows of the aluminum folding chairs that locals trudge in, along with coolers full of Bud Light. Some of chairs that line the fences, I was told, have been chained in place for decades. Sort of like putting a folded Form on your grandstand seat–to save it from others–but with greater permanence. “You'll see two old ladies that first met as young girls along the rail, and who still sit next to each other each year,” one person explained.
Also, there are two big barns, one for fillies taking part in the Jugette, held a day before the Jug, and another for the Jug. Each barn is circular with a big, open-air space in the middle, and the public is invited in to see the horses up close and personal. On the morning of the Jug, He's Watching, one of the favorites, alternately ravaged his Jolly Ball and inquisitively poked his head out of the stall to see all the passers-by.
The fan interaction component of it reminded me of when John Shirreffs would generously let fans come up and pat Zenyatta on the nose when she was out grazing. Our equine stars aren't pets. But it does seem like the more we can encourage a closer interaction between the horses and the fans, the better it will be for our sport.
At around 4:45 p.m., pacers for the first elimination lined up behind the moving starting gate. The heavy favorite, Lyonssomewhere, flashed his trademark early speed and, despite leaving from post seven, easily cleared the field. He largely went unchallenged for the remainder of the mile. As the field turned for home, the race was essentially over. But then it wasn't. For no good reason, Lyonssomewhere jumped off stride (broke into a gallop), forcing Yannick Gingras to steer him off the track. He finished last and would not make the final. So much for the $45,000 supplement fee.
“He was home free,” Gingras told me later. “I had never asked him at that point. I hadn't pulled the [ear] plugs yet, and I was loaded. I was trying to keep something for the second heat. Then he had an unfortunate break, which was devastating.”
Gingras, it seemed, would go another year wouldn't a Jug win on his resume.
The second elimination figured to boil down to Coleman's McWicked, with the Buckeye ace Miller in the bike, and He's Watching, the Jolly Ball brutalizer whose victory in the $775,000 Meadowlands Pace in July stamped him as one of the best in the country.
McWicked jumped out to lead early, and at 3-5, looked nearly unbeatable early, particularly as He's Watching, racing wide down the backside the second time, began to struggle. With 100 yards to go, it still looked like McWicked's race to lose, but on the outside came flying the longshot Limelight Beach, who was still looking for his first victory in his 13th start of the year. Limelight Beach surged, and won the race by a length. The driver? Yannick Gingras. The Jug was still within his grasp.
If the crowd was slow to back Limelight Beach and Gingras in the second elimination, it didn't make that mistake again in the final. Hammered down to even-money with that coveted rail draw, Limelight Beach, looking to improve to 2-for-2 on the afternoon after going 0-for-12 the rest of the year, led every step and cruised home a confident winner. Gingras had his Jug victory.
“It's unbelievable,” said Gingras, the sport's hottest driver right now. “It's one of those races you dream of winning. It feels awesome. The way [Limelight Beach] raced in the second division, I would have been shocked if he lost [the final].”
A few hours later, I was still churning out copy for HRU, the last person in the fair grounds press box that sits atop the old grandstand. It was dark and the track was barely visible, but you could still hear the sounds of the midway in the distance. I was thinking about what legendary track announcer Roger Huston, the voice of the Jug, had theatrically said just before the first elim: “We've been thinking about this moment since the 2013 Little Brown Jug was made official.” It was true, I guess. I'm already thinking about 2015. If you have a chance to go, you should think about it, too.
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