Woodbine Racetrack to experiment with clockwise thoroughbred racing

TORONTO -- Emma-Jayne Wilson is eager to help take Canadian thoroughbred racing in a new direction this spring.

Woodbine Racetrack will stage 25 turf events clockwise this season, a shift from the traditionally run counter-clockwise races.

Wilson, who became the first female jockey to win the Queen's Plate in 2007, has ridden clockwise in Hong Kong and England and is looking forward to the first clockwise race at Woodbine in late May. The Toronto oval will be the first in North America to race in the opposite direction.

"I'd love to say we're going in the right direction but Europeans have always said we North Americans have been going the wrong way for years," Wilson said with a chuckle. "But it's something I'm very much looking forward to because what makes good jockeys what they are is being able to adapt to different situations.

"It's going to be really, really fun."

Woodbine CEO Jim Lawson hopes the innovation will boost interest in an industry that has struggled since the Ontario government in 2012 cancelled the slots-at-racetracks partnership, which annually pumped millions into horse racing's coffers.

"If you don't try you never know," Lawson said. "We need innovative ways to attract more fans, horses and horse people to Woodbine.

"At a practical level, it's using a part of the turf course we weren't using very much to hopefully create larger field sizes. In turn, there's no question larger field sizes mean more wagering so there's a whole business aspect to it."

Woodbine will offer 133 racing dates from Saturday to Dec. 4 and feature a new Tapeta main track, replacing the nine-year-old Polytrack surface. Tapeta, a patented wax-coated mixture of sand, rubber and fibre, offers better protection for a horse's legs and feet.

The Queen's Plate, Woodbine's marquee race, will continue to be run counter-clockwise on the new surface. Major turf stakes races like the Woodbine Mile will also remain counter-clockwise.

Clockwise races will take place only on turf about once a week, reducing wear and tear on the final turn and backstretch of the 1 1/2-mile E.P. Taylor course. They will generally cover 5 1/2 furlongs to utilize the area from the traditional first turn down to the finish line, which is rarely used because most counter-clockwise races don't require two turns.

The most obvious adjustment jockeys and horses face is direction. But Wilson said one change she had to make riding clockwise was strengthening the muscles on her right side.

"From a physical standpoint, I think it's going to take a little bit more adjustment for the jocks because none of the horses presumably have gone clockwise," she said. "So I think for us to guide them through that's going to be something we're going to have to adjust to."

Wilson said it's hard to predict how horses will react.

"I remember one horse I rode in Hong Kong was a sprinter, he loved going 5/8ths of a mile," she said. "In Hong Kong they have two 5/8ths races, one straight and another around a bend.

"My horse was terrible going around the bend but deadly going straight. That's what I think you're going to see . . . a horse that didn't do well in other races do very well in this style, for whatever reason."

Lawson agrees.

"Just think about skating and doing the right-handed crossover versus the left-handed crossover," he said. "I definitely think we're going to find some horses are better right-turners, which is a whole other interesting handicapping angle."

In October, Wilson and fellow jockeys Patrick Husbands of Brampton, Ont., and David Moran of Mississauga, Ont., made a clockwise test run at Woodbine. They rode three-deep, with Wilson on the rail, where she got a read on the turf and handling in the two bends.

"My horse was a three-year-old filly that had run maybe 10 times," Wilson said. "She handled it like she had done it 10 times and I was really surprised.

"There's enough of a bank to that turn that really helps carry the horses around. It rode a lot smoother than I think any of us anticipated."

Hall of Fame trainer Roger Attfield, an eight-time Queen's Plate winner, rode right-handed in his native England and made his own clockwise trip at Woodbine.

"There's a wonderful grade on that turn, much better than I thought," Attfield said, adding there's ample room off the final bend to make a solid finishing charge.

Attfield believes horses can adapt to running clockwise if introduced to it in training.

"Actually, it's better for their bodies physically instead of just going the same way all the time," Attfield said. "It creates a bit more interest for them . . . I've never seen any difference one way or the other with most horses."