In the 60s, before scraping the track to make it like concrete, there were LOTS of races when the drivers were 3,4 and 5 wide for the whole race. Races went in 212 -215. I have raced at tracks that put cones up and the drivers had to stay outside of the cones. Hit a cone and you were DQed.
Yep, better ground back there for sure.
That brings back memories of how I got fucked over on day with a horse with the same trainer and track. I was down about 3,000 for the day and the trainer had his good trotter coming off a year layoff from back trouble. He had been giving the horse chiropractic treatment. I bet just under 1,000 on him, half of it win and place and the rest on a quinella (No exactas there), trifectas and P3. his trainer said he would win 1st up over 1.5 miles. He went off at 11-1 and he pulls the horse from 4th over halfway down the long stretch and gobbles up the others and then starts trotting roughly. His driver decided to give him a decent slap with the whip to attempt to get him to stay trotting because he was going to lose it. The horse lost it and ended up winning by a nose. It was pretty much a DQ from 1st. The only thing that could save him was the rest of the field was 6 lengths away at the finish. I had a $200 quinella that was paying 32 for $1. The judges were outside waiting for the drivers so they could conduct an inquiry and one of them who I knew well said to me, "It doesn't look good, he's probably going back to last". And even though there were 6 lengths between 2nd and 3rds, they put him back to 4th. His back muscles had gotten sore and this was the only time the horse every broke stride in his career.
He came back two days later in a 2 mile race and I wrote a rubber check and put the whole 2,000 on him. He went off at better than 3 to 1 and won against the same field by 5 lengths. I was shocked he brought him back 2 days later at the same meet but he said he was even more confident of winning. Had he not broken stride on day 1, he would have won by 5 that day., I missed out on like 24,000 big ones.
