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Article: Tug of the Jug: Harness-racing event a real point of pride in Delaware.
- Article from:
- The Columbus Dispatch (Columbus, OH)
- Article date:
- September 20, 2007
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 The Columbus Dispatch. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: Michael Arace
Sep. 20--DELAWARE, Ohio -- To get a grip on why Delaware has been the world's most famous harness-racing site for more than a half-century, and to understand why it will remain as such until the apocalypse, it's important to see the big picture of a sport that got its start in the Roman Empire.
Some historians peg the fall of that empire at 476 A.D., when Romulus Augustus was deposed as ruler. Horsemen also consider this a watershed date, because it marked the scrapping of chariots. How dark were the Middle Ages? There was no harness racing.
The sport would lay dormant another 1,400 years, or until American farmers took up ...