Second to dueling, the next most difficult thing for a horse to do on the track is to race without the benefit of another horse in front of him, called 'cover'. Tests have shown that in marathon running, for example, or competitive cycling, as much as 15% less energy can be used by a competitor who is racing immediately behind another competitor thereby avoiding the wind resistance inherent in racing in front. Naturally, any horse that races on the lead is, by definition, racing without the benefit of any cover. This is why we always have to give horses credit that leave hard and set the pace. Naturally, when a horse rushes up on the outside to challenge the lead, he forgoes the benefits of cover in order to advance position. Likewise, when a horse makes a 3-wide move, he too has nobody in front of him. A couple of other situations to watch out for which are less obvious and may not show up on the program, but which are equally as powerful - a horse from the rear, for example, may start to advance gradually hoping that someone else will move out in front of him to provide cover (often called 'flushing out cover'). It may be very difficult to guess from a program for how long, if at all, he had to fight the wind before gaining cover. The other very subtle one is the gapper. This is the horse that is, for whatever reason, not keeping up with the horse immediately in front of him. Keep in mind that the effects of cover lessen the further a horse is behind the horse in front of him. With a full-length gap in between two horses, the effect of cover is diminished quite a bit. This means that a horse who is sitting "a loose pocket", second on the rail by 2 1/2 lengths, this means that there is about 1 1/4 lengths of open air in between the two - most of the benefit of the cover is lost at this point - so this horse may indeed be using additional energy battling the added wind resistance. The other wild card in this equation is the direction of the wind, which can either enhance or reduce the effects of cover. Harness horses travel at about 30 mph, which means in still wind, they have a 30 mph wind in their face. If you add to that an additional 10-mph headwind, this makes going uncovered even more intense, versus racing with cover. Again, there is no way to make a mathematical equivalent of just how much, in time, working against a wind is worth. The very best way to see what it is worth on any given night, is to evaluate the relative performances of the various horses who race without cover at various points, and estimate on that basis, how much starch it was taking out of the horses.

The final basic action that a horse can take which uses excess energy is by racing on the outside at certain points in the race. Now this is not as big a deal on the mile track as it is on smaller ones, and is really only a factor at certain critical points. But when you consider just how close so many races are, hey, a few feet are a few feet! The specific points are the turns, and on a mile track, the points are not so much the middle of the turn, but the ground entering and leaving the turns (i.e. entering the first turn, just before the quarter, just after the half and between the 3/4 and the 'head of stretch' point. At the Meadowlands, this is where the ground is really lost. Yet, this is the most difficult part of the race to watch closely, particularly on a television.

If you look at the track, the 3/4 pole occurs before the steepest part coming out of the turn. You would think that this would be the head of the stretch. But it is not. Next time you watch the Meadowlands either live or on TV, you will see that the horses have straightened out and are in full drive to the wire for quite some time (about 1/3 of the way down) before they pass the pole which marks the "top of stretch" that you see on the program. This also happens to be a key part of the race where a lot of the action happens. An interestingly, now that the Meadowlands television coverage has expanded to included both a close-up and wide angle view in split screen, you would think that this solves the problem, right? Wrong! The wide angle misses the exit of the first turn, and cuts out at the 3/4 pole, thereby keeping you from seeing what is really happening with horses in mid-pack and the rear, particularly those who are wide, at just the time when you would want to see who is loosing ground at what point! How and when a horse goes wide can make a world of difference, not just in terms of the actual extra ground covered (which could be calculated), but also in terms of lost momentum and having to be checked or steadied for steering purposes. A horse with a "head of steam" who initiates a 3-wide move at the 3/4 at the Meadowlands is underway and can often easily negotiate the final swing home with barely any negative effects, except for extra distance (which, by the way, this same horse would have had to run anyway if he were to stay put on the turn and then "angle" through the stretch.) On the other hand, a horse who is following cover who is forced to go wide right at this critical juncture is at a significant disadvantage and often loses not only the ground, but loses momentum and sometimes his rhythm (or 'action').

Then there are variations or mutations of these, which certain types of horses must deal with, depending on their predominant racing style. They entail parts of the 3 basic energy uses above, but are important to isolate and be aware of when you see them. You also need to know how these are hinted at in the program, and how to confirm this by using the charts.

Here are some of the more subtle, less obvious ways that lack of cover and racing wide can affect certain types of horses.

1. Being kept wide by inside leavers - this usually happens when a horse leaves from the outside and the horse or horses immediately inside of him leave also. This can cause a number of things. First, the outside horse has to stay much wider than he would if, say, the speed came from the inside. Second, he may have to "take back" or temporarily restrain the horse in order to keep from being that wide and to try to gain cover. Once a horse is wound up and fired up to leave, many horses have difficulty 'coming back to' the driver, or relaxing quickly and temporarily, then being asked to re-accelerate shortly thereafter.
2. Forcing a tuck - this occurs when a horse as gained a lead and another horse who the driver considers 'dead' has become parked on the outside, unable to find a spot, and must proceed to the front. One option the driver has is to let the horse go, then "retake" (which is covered next). Otherwise, he can sit and risk being stuck behind him if he tires later. Not wanting to do this, a driver may elect to accelerate quickly, opening up a spot for this horse to drop in. The additional acceleration sometimes can be substantial and can actually constitute a 'move' in and of itself, and can take something out of the horse later. Do not confuse this type of tuck forcing with the intentional type where the driver knows the horse is the best and wishes to dissuade any challengers right away by opening up hard enough to offer all who wish rail position to have it.
3. Retaking - as mentioned above, a horse on the lead has already accelerated, started to relax on the lead, then must pick up and accelerate again to regain. Often, this is accomplished quite easily, but sometimes, this 'on and off the accelerator' can use up more energy than the pure speed of the fractions would indicate.
4. Getting 'looped' - this happens when a horse leaves, usually from the middle of the track but cannot beat the outside leavers to the turn, who in turn, lose ground and cannot keep up with leavers and others from the inside. This has the effect of 'shuffling' back a front runner in the first turn. Often, the horse is first out of the gate, meets a leaver from the rail near the first turn, gets passed by the outside horse entering the turn who stalls a bit, and finally, another inside horse or two have advanced along the inside so that as they come out of the turn, he is fifth and still parked! And the problem is that he has already used good energy, made a move, but has gained no positional advantage to show for it!
5. Similar to #4, is the "indecisive, half-ass leave" which uses up more leavers than I can shake a stick at. This has two forms.... First, is the "leave hard uh oh take back" variety, where the horse leaves, say, from the 3-hole. Gets the early jump but cannot swing over to the rail as the 1 and 2 leave just hard enough to keep him out. Then comes the turn. Sometimes, this horse will back off at that point and just duck in, but the damage has already been done, because energy was already used on the hard leave and the early duel. Poor stretch performance later in the race can look like a poor performance when in fact, the horse used up much more energy early on that does not show up on the program. The other form is the "we ain't leaving so relax oh boy look nobody else is leaving let's leave" maneuver. This describes the horse who isn't leaving, then suddenly decides to leave like half way to the turn and ends up either parked or ducking in mid-pack on the rail. Later, when the horse picks up what looks like a perfect cover trip and has nothing, there is no apparent explanation. But the explanation is that the horse used much excess energy stepping on the gas suddenly after being given the signal from the driver to relax at the start. Do not confuse this with the horse who is leaving for position from the very start, finds and ducks into a hole. Both may end up in the same position after the quarter, but one has used far more energy than the other has.

1. Nobody leaves - strange as this may sound, closers can very often get caught very wide in the first turn, losing valuable ground while not gaining any positional advantage. The neatest version of this is when nobody leaves -- all the drivers are looking to the left and right, but the horses stay in a straight line! Eventually, they gradually drift in toward the rail, but your closer from one of the outside posts has to be strangled until he nearly falls down and paces most of the first turn 8 wide!
2. Catching Up to Cover - frequently, a closer may have to actually 'brush' to catch up to a live horse who he can use for cover. This can be an additional use of energy for the closer.
3. Waiting to Flush Cover - closers often go to the outside before there is actually another horse there to provide cover. They do this hoping that someone will pop out in front of them to break the wind. The only problem is, lots of times, that doesn't happen. So, rather than press on and go first-over and duel directly for the lead, the just hang there for what seems like at least 2 or 3 days, like an over-ripe banana hanging from a tree. All the while, they are breaking the wind, and if they stay there long enough, they will lose ground on the turn. They usually hang just off the shoulder of the heavy favorite, or another 'live' horse who they figure doesn't want to sit there and get shuffled. Sometimes, they go up and hang behind one horse, then, after the driver turns around and says,"Hey Jack, I told you I'm staying on the rail tonight" they inch up to the next horse and pause, until the driver says "no cover from me, buddy." In the meanwhile, other alert closers have gotten behind him and are laughing. He continues, pausing before each horse to see if that one will move and finally, when he has decided that there ain't gonna be no flow here, decides to go up after the leader like he should have done in the first place. But suddenly, a 45-1 shot who hasn't left the rail in 2 months pops out first over to save him, and starts to mount a challenge with the determination of a bowl of Jello. As our closer sits there behind the melting Jello, others have circled around him such that at the top of the stretch, he is now 11th, which makes things very difficult especially when there are only 10 horses entered in the race in the first place. The point here being: the wait for cover itself can cause a closer to go uncovered for quite some time, and the holding back waiting combine to use up much more energy than you might think. Often, these horse finally do get cover, but seem to lack the pop, and often, they've spent their energy just trying to work out the trip.

4. Angling through the stretch - often closers will have to change direction in the stretch in order to find adequate racing room. When the driver has to yank the horse's head to the left or right, it is very obvious. But few people realize just how much ground is lost when a closer has to angle through the stretch for a good period. If you watch the head-on shots of the stretch at Balmoral, you will see some horses who actually never fact the wire … they run the entire ¼ mile long stretch on one continuous angle. This is something to watch for, as the horse can often seem like they are not impeded, with full racing room and in full stride.