Ruining Death of a Racehorse

Over on storyboard, Jones has an essay on why W.C. Heinz's Death of a Racehorse is so good.

I got to thinking about why I like that story. I think it's his strange and inconsistent use of verb tense, which is all over the map. Anyhow, I wondered what it would look like if the tense was more consistent throughout. I took a quick shot at an edit, just to see what it looked like. Figured I'd share. How does it change the story?

They were going headed to the post for the sixth race at Jamaica, two year olds, some making their first starts, to go five and a half furlongs for a purse of four thousand dollars. They were moving moved slowly down the backstretch toward the gate, some of them…