The Record
What This Harness Racing Results Archive Holds
This harness racing results archive covers Plainridge Racecourse, which raced standardbreds at Plainville in Massachusetts for the better part of two decades. Its racing office published a program before every card and an official chart afterwards. Both went on the web at the time, and both of them then went dark again.
The harness racing results held here are specific rather than rounded: 241 race days across 14 seasons, 1990 individual races and 3,950 charted finishers. Of those days 99 carry the full official chart with running lines, and the rest survive as the entry sheet alone, a distinction stated at the top of every page.
That makes these standardbred race results a record rather than a summary. A chart line is not a headline: it gives the post position drawn, where the horse sat at each quarter, the margin at the wire, the individual time and the closing odds. Every page on this site is built from those lines.
Standardbred Race Results, Season by Season
The meeting ran spring to autumn, so a season of standardbred race results is a scatter of afternoons rather than a continuous block. Each index below lists its surviving dates month by month and marks which carry a chart. Pick a year to see how many cards were held and what class the office was writing.
0 races → 2001 11 race days
119 races · 8 charted → 2002 32 race days
342 races · 19 charted → 2003 57 race days
614 races · 42 charted → 2004 51 race days
393 races · 28 charted → 2005 28 race days
55 races · 2 charted → 2006 12 race days
2 races → 2007 3 race days
31 races → 2008 6 race days
60 races → 2009 11 race days
102 races → 2010 14 race days
115 races → 2011 4 race days
43 races → 2013 8 race days
81 races → 2014 3 race days
33 races →
Entries, and How They Differ From the Charts
An entry sheet is a forecast and a chart is a verdict. The sheet gives the field as drawn, with post positions, the driver and trainer engaged, each horse's best mile that season and any declared medication. Read together, harness racing entries and results show what the office expected and what actually happened.
The distinction matters for form study, which is why harness racing entries and results are kept apart here rather than merged. A horse that drew the outside and finished fifth has a completely different story from one that drew the rail and finished fifth, and the entry sheet is where that context lives.
The entries section explains the sheet column by column. If you would rather learn it on a real card than in the abstract, the walkthrough of how to read a harness racing program annotates an actual Plainridge sheet field by field, working through it in the order a horseman would scan it.
Payouts, and Where the Record Runs Out
Win, place and show prices, with the exacta, trifecta and superfecta pools, were printed on their own sheet. That sheet carried a day and a month but never a year, so tying one to a card in this harness racing results archive takes a match on the horses themselves rather than a guess at the date.
Where that match could be made, the payouts appear on the race day. Where it could not, they are left off. Only 18 of the 241 days here carry payout figures at all. The rest are shown without them rather than with a date invented to close the gap, because a guessed date would quietly corrupt the whole record.
Most Recent Cards in the Archive
entry sheet → Sep 27, 2014 8 races
entry sheet → Jul 9, 2014 12 races
entry sheet → Jul 16, 2013 9 races
entry sheet → Jul 15, 2013 9 races
entry sheet → Jul 11, 2013 8 races
entry sheet → Jul 4, 2013 8 races
entry sheet → Jul 2, 2013 10 races
entry sheet → Jun 6, 2013 9 races
entry sheet → May 28, 2013 13 races
entry sheet → May 27, 2013 15 races
entry sheet → Oct 11, 2011 8 races
entry sheet →
Where to Start
If you came looking for one horse, go straight to the horse index; there are 2,864 of them, each with every start held here. Drivers and trainers have exactly the same treatment, and repeated pairings between the three of them are usually the most telling thing in a regional record.
If the program itself is the puzzle, the class-code glossary decodes 164 conditions taken from real cards rather than copied out of a rulebook, each one shown with the purses and the gaits it was actually carded for over the seasons. And the track records page holds the divisional marks , headed by MALTESE ARTIST in 1:49.2.
Questions About This Archive
What does this harness racing results archive actually contain?
It holds the surviving programs from Plainridge Racecourse in Plainville, Massachusetts: 241 race days across 14 seasons, 1990 races, and 3,950 charted finishers. Where the official chart survives, each line gives the finishing position, the winning time, the closing odds and the names of both the driver and the trainer who were engaged that afternoon.
Why do some race days show entries instead of finish positions?
Two different documents were published for each afternoon. The entry sheet came out days before the race and lists the field as drawn; the official chart came out afterwards and records what happened. For some dates only one of the two survives, so the page shows whichever is held rather than inventing the other.
How do I read a harness time like 1:56.2?
As minutes, seconds and fifths of a second. So 1:56.2 is one minute, fifty-six seconds and two fifths — not two hundredths. Harness racing kept the fifths convention from the era of hand timing, and both programs and record books still use it today, which reliably trips up newcomers arriving from other sports.
Why are times here slower than at the famous tracks?
Plainridge is a five-eighths-mile oval, so a mile race goes round four turns instead of the two a mile track requires. Every turn costs momentum. A time set here is not directly comparable with a mark from a mile oval, and the difference reflects geometry rather than the quality of the horse.
What do the class codes in the program mean?
They are the racing secretary's shorthand for who was eligible to enter. NW caps money already won, PS makes that cap an average per start, CL marks a claiming race, and FM in front of any of it restricts the field to fillies and mares. The condition glossary decodes every single code carded here.
Are the payout figures complete?
No, and the gap is worth stating plainly. Win, place and show prices plus the exotic pools were printed on a separate sheet that carried no date of its own. Where that sheet could not be tied to a specific card with confidence, it is not attached to one. Only 18 days here carry payouts.
Does Plainridge still race?
The track at Plainville still stages live harness racing under its present operator, running a spring-to-autumn meeting. This archive covers the earlier era of the racecourse rather than the current season, so it is strictly a historical record rather than a source for today's cards, post times or entries. Use the present operator for anything current.
Can I look up an individual horse, driver or trainer?
Yes. Every name in the charts has been pivoted into its own record: 2,864 horses, 175 drivers and 358 trainers, each one showing every start held here with the date, the class it was carded in, the finishing position, and the driver and trainer behind the horse that afternoon.