Harness racing in Australia Harness racing in Australia Harness racing, also colloquially known as trotting or the trots, is an important spectator sport in Australia, with large amounts of money wagered annually with bookmakers and the Totalisator Agency Board (TAB). In Australia there are 91 harness racing tracks, which hold over 1,900 meetings annually. There are approximately 2,900 drivers and 4,000 trainers with about 5,000 Standardbred horses foaled and registered each year. Harness racing in Australia is conducted with Standardbred horses racing around a track while pulling a driver in a two-wheeled cart called a "sulky", "gig" or "bike". Standardbred racehorses compete in two
Harness racing in Finland 3 000 are competing in harness racing. Finnhorse harness racing has recently decreased slightly, and occasionally coldblood heats have to be cancelled due to lack of participants. As of 2004, less than 35 percent of all harness racing heats were open for coldblood horses, more than 5 percental units less than in the early 1990s. Harness racing in general is not experiencing any such decline. The decrease of the popularity of the Finnhorse can be result from many factors. For instance, the expenses of horse keeping in Finland are high, so light trotters, usable for competition a year earlier than