Pasco
Harnessing interest
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Published: January 22, 2012
DADE CITY - Sunday afternoons often find Jacqlin Crotty harnessing her small horse Shut Up Bill to a two-wheeled buggy at Sunshine Raceway, where the two of them take on other competitors in the little-noticed sport of trottingbred horse racing.
"Once you start, you don't get it out of your blood," said Crotty, who took up the pastime in the 1960s and isn't ready to put down the reins just yet.
She is 75.
She also is not much of an aberration in the trottingbred world. The racers at the Dade City track come in all ages. The youngest is about 18. The oldest is nearly 80. Most are in their late 50s to mid-70s.
"It's a great sport," said Crotty, a Brooksville resident. "It's not too expensive to get into."
The racing season at Sunshine Raceway started New Year's Day and continues through April 1. Races happen every Sunday starting at 1:30 p.m. Gates open at noon and admission is a $2 donation that helps with the upkeep of the track.
The track, maintained by the Pasco Trotting and Pacing Association, is off Old Lakeland Highway south of Dade City.
Refreshments are sold during races, but audience members need to bring their own seating because there are no bleachers.
The horses are classified by their speeds, so the slower animals don't face off against the speedsters.
"That wouldn't be fair and it could cause an accident," Crotty said.
While standardbred harness horses race one mile, their trottingbred cousins just go about half that distance. On the Sunshine Raceway's short oval track it takes two laps to finish a race.
Trottingbred racing was a grass-roots movement that developed in the 1960s, or perhaps a little earlier, as people crossed Welsh, Hackney and Shetland ponies with full standardbred horses.
In the 1970s, the trottingbred became an official registered breed.
To qualify for racing, trottingbreds can't measure more than 51.5 inches from the ground to the top of the withers, and that's with their horseshoes on. (By comparison, standardbred horses range from about 60 to 66 inches.)
The sport used to claim tracks across the country, Crotty said, but over the years as land prices skyrocketed and the economy faltered the number of tracks began to dwindle. Racing still is found in such states as Pennsylvania and Indiana.
The Pasco Trotting and Pacing Association is the only group that holds races in Florida, said Ron DeSilva, president of the group.
He also is president of the International Trotting and Pacing Association.
The Pasco club has close to 40 members, he said, with about 15 of those actively racing.
DeSilva, 62, became interested in trottingbred racing in the 1970s in his native Bermuda, and continued when he moved to Pasco in 1994.
"It's a fun sport," DeSilva said. "But you have to be dedicated to it."
His entire family is involved. His wife, Jill, and his 20-year-old daughter Allison both race. DeSilva's other daughter, 18-year-old Laura, serves as parade marshal for the races, riding a horse that leads the racers onto the track. Allison's 3-year-old daughter, Aubrey Prescott, also joins in.
The DeSilvas at various times take turns serving as track announcers, starters and judges.
"We do a little bit of everything if we have to," he said.
DeSilva would like to see participation in the sport rise.
"It's pretty hard trying to get people interested in it," he said. "A lot of people here in Florida — the younger ones anyhow — they go off hunting on the weekends."
Getting started in the pastime requires an initial investment of about $1,500, he said. That buys a horse, a buggy and a harness. After that, the main cost is upkeep of the horse.
"The equipment will last you forever," he said.
When today's slate of races begins, Crotty doesn't expect to compete because her horse is taking some time off because of lameness. She hopes Shut Up Bill will be back pulling the buggy soon.
She revealed her horse's name with some reluctance.
"I didn't name him," she said. "I don't know how they came up with that name."
There is at least a slight clue.
Shut Up Bill, acquired from a Pennsylvania breeder, was born to a mare named Hey Hey Hillary.
rblair@tampatrib.com (813) 259-7065
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