by Trey Nosrac
Another alert reader of this publication emailed headquarters concerning the Breaking Stride columns for this month.
“Interesting stuff on harness movies. Why do you think there was a 37-year gap between April Love and Eden Valley? Weren’t those boom years for harness racing? Did Hollywood think there was insufficient interest to make money?”
Technically, Eden Valley should be in the category of a foreign film. If you eliminate Eden Valley, many harness fans have “never” had a “single” film about their sport or set in the harness racing world debut in their lifetime. There has not been another American movie based on harness racing since Pat Boone starred (and crooned the tune April Love).
It is not like April Love, our last harness racing movie, bombed; it turned a nice profit. On a side note, April Love, a song written for the film, became a number-one hit in the United States for Pat Boone and spent 26 weeks on the U.S. pop charts. It spent six weeks at No. 1 and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Score, but lost to All the Way.
Returning to the original question, why have no harness racing movies been produced in recent history? Let me state clearly: I do not know. However, I have firsthand experience concerning the rejection of our sport for a national audience. Twice, I had harness horse stories pending in significant national magazines. Neither article on the drawing board reached print. One editor feared offending anti-gambling readers in the audience.
The other editor passed on the story due to demographics. He said, “What do our readers in Idaho know about this sport? Many people have never seen harness horse racing and do not have access to it on television.”
These reasons were understandable in 2012, but today, they are quaint concepts when we can watch racing and gamble from our hand-held devices. Gambling and demographics are no longer taboos for movies or print material.
A hit movie can do wonders for any sport struggling for attention. A movie set in a unique sporting world can draw attention. Harness racing could use a shot in the arm and a movie project to raise all spirits. I subscribe to the anything is possible school. Other minor sports keep getting featured roles in the movies. For example, here is a short list of recent films on obscure sports:
Chess — Queen of Katwe and Queen’s Gambit
Rugby — Invictus and Murderball
Wrestling — Foxcatcher
Arcade Gaming — The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
Arm Wrestling — Over the Top
Dodgeball — Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
Roller Derby — Whip It
Formula One — Rush
Tae Kwon Do — The Foot Fist Way
Motorcycle racing — The World’s Fastest Indian
Ping Pong — Ping Pong
Harness horse racing? After extensive googling, the best I could scrape up in movieland since April Love, with a whiff of harness racing, was a 2011 movie, The Eagle, a historical drama featuring the sport of Roman chariot racing.
As The Dude says in The Big Lebowski, “This must not stand!”
Ergo, Trey is working on another absurd plan. Next week, the Breaking Stride column will contain the first in a series of movie scenes in which the “sport of harness horse racing,” characters, animals, and setting will be part of the picture. Consider these scenes artistic springboards or not-so-subtle cues for the laggards in Hollywood who have ignored the trotters and pacers for the previous 68 years.
After several scenes are in the public domain via this site, a short story based on harness horses (working title – Abandoned Horses) will be posted, a story just “waiting” for Hollywood to turn into a screenplay. All this material will be in the public domain and copyright-free. In addition, the barrage of random movie suggestions, sometimes referred to as elevator pitches or proposals, will be forwarded to real people working in California’s fantastical land.
Now, you may find such tomfoolery a waste of time. You may not believe in miracles. You may never play long shots. However, you must take that first tentative step when gambling on horses, raising horses, racing horses, or making a movie. Or, as someone once said, “You will never hook a fish if you don’t put a line in the water.”