To recap the year that was, we asked horsemen and women from all spectrums of the industry to write a holiday letter to the year 2020. This is the third one, courtesy of HN’s racing writer Richard R. Gross.

Dear 2020,

Tiz the season for nostalgia, but few people will feel even a hint of a dash of a glimmer of nostalgia for you, 2020, as we bid a not-so-fond adieu. I write “few” because I’m in the camp that believes the worst thing we do does not define us.

Take you, 2020. You’ve been pretty cruel to humans. When you haven’t harmed us outright—and you’ve harmed millions of us outright—you’ve made our lives pretty strange: You’ve taken away that “business” trip to Paris and made it a Zoom meeting at 5 a.m. in our home office; our kids’ “walk to school” consists of a stroll from their bedroom to their seat at the kitchen table; we rarely venture outside and, when we do, the fortunate among us are “dressed” like the unnamed government agents in white hazmat gear from ET: The Extraterrestrial.

Those and other not-so-fond memories will be the only takeaway of you for most, 2020.

Me? I write about horses and horse racing, so my feelings about you are decidedly mixed. Of course I’ll remember all that nasty stuff. On the other hand, my memories of your predecessor, 2019, regarding Thoroughbred horses and the racing stars I love are worse.

That year began with the untimely track deaths of 44 horses during the winter meet at California’s Santa Anita Park.

Later in the year, another four horses would die at San Diego’s Del Mar.

Sure, the Stronach Group that owns Santa Anita issued rule changes to control whips and medication at all its California tracks to enhance safety.

But the skeptic in me wonders if this was only a gesture to ensure the track would hold onto hosting the revenue-rich Breeders’ Cup scheduled there near year’s end.

Next came the indignity of the historic disqualification of Maximum Security from his win in that year’s Kentucky Derby, giving racing more of the controversy it did not need.

And, of course, 2019 could not end without delivering a final bitter reminder of everything that came before, this during the final stretch of the final race on the final day of the final big meet of the year, the Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita.

We all hoped you, 2020, would begin to clean up the racing mess left by your predecessor. Shockingly, other things aside, you’ve done precisely that!

You did get off to a shaky start with that controversial bumper-car finish at the inaugural Saudi Cup (G1) in February, a race won by—of course—Maximum Security.

That mess is still unresolved and Max has yet to be paid his $10 million, but that’s because some of racing’s issues, the use of illegal substances in this instance, began to be sorted.

All the attention heaped on Max since his Derby DQ led the U.S. Feds to heap attention, and wiretaps, onto trainer Jason Servis. The result was a federal indictment against Servis and another New York trainer for their use of a supposedly undetectable performance enhancing drug (PED), not just on one of their horses but on the entire string under their “care.”

Okay, score one for you.

But you couldn’t stand doing the right thing for an entire year, could you? So, you threw a plague at us.

It began to look like a continuation of the 2019 racing mess. But we humans are an inventive species and your predecessor had pricked our ears and gotten our attention. The Triple Crown race schedule was altered in the most radical way ever while the rescheduling made a mess of the fall racing season in New York and elsewhere.

No matter. By this time, we were grappling with a far larger problem.

By summer, racing had become a welcome distraction from the ills literally all around us. Television ratings blossomed since it was the only sport in play at first.

Racing is the only sport funded almost entirely by betting. Controversial to be sure, but necessary now; it held steady.

The ease of COVID-19 transmission and controversy over how to control it resulted in a ban on spectators at races. That was weird at first, but websites friendly to bettors had been long-established and also helped make watching racing anywhere in the world pleasant. You can even cancel knowledge of a race’s result before watching post-race replays! Pretty cool.

Surprisingly, the reconfigured Triple Crown races came off well.

Authentic lived up to his earlier promise and, in his first race under John Velazquez, ran gate-to-wire with a first-ever First-Saturday-in-September Kentucky Derby victory. You tossed in a bonus: A huge win for the 5,300-plus mostly everyday owners of a share in Authentic purchased for only $210 through the new venture, MyRaceHorse:

Five weeks later, you really restored some pizazz to the sport with a thrilling Preakness stretch duel  between the Derby winner and the New Girl in Town, Swiss Skydiver. The result was a rare filly Preakness win:

In September, you gave us passage of The Horseracing Safety and Integrity Act by a U.S. Lower House that had tabled bills like it for years. Now, Senate passage and a Presidential signature will give the Federal government oversight of the drug issue that has plagued racing for decades:

You capped all that off with two days of great racing in the best Breeders’ Cup in recent memory at Keeneland, Kentucky’s “Birthplace of American Racing.” Those race results give us a potentially exciting Eclipse Awards race for Champion Sprinter, even Champion Horse of the Year.

This week, The Stronach Group joined People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in opposing the sale of horses for slaughter to South Korea.

Hearing that Stronach and PETA are on the same page on anything is like hearing Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders voted for Donald Trump.

Those of us who love horses hope to see a continuation in 2021 of the reforms that benefit the well-being of horses and the ethical enjoyment of racing.

So (gulp), thank you, 2020, for an island of equine calm in this human-tumultuous year. We’re truly appreciative.

Now get out…

Feature image: Monomoy Girl snares the lead L BC Distaff. CREDIT Breeders’ Cup