For those who think that banks and Facebook are evil, I have news for you… evil+evil=doing some good. At least in the case of Chase Community Giving, which is only available on Facebook!

It can be incredibly powerful when your vote has a local impact. Chase is giving away $5 million to various charities and needs you to help pick which ones. Simply vote for your favorite nonprofit and then get friends and others on Facebook to do the same. Give your charity the recognition it deserves and needs with Chase Community Giving.

Interesting, no? I mean, being on Facebook can’t be ALL time wasting can it? The program allows people to help charities with no financial outlay by giving everyone who installs the app a whopping 20 votes. I haven’t even used all of mine yet!

The distribution is interesting too:

More than 500 nonprofits with an operating budget of $10 million or less will be eligible. The charity receiving the most votes will be awarded $1 million, the top five runners-up will receive $100,000 each, and the 100 finalists, including the top winners, will be awarded $25,000 each.

And, in case you’re starting to wonder if this has anything to do with racing, it does. There are plenty of racing charities vying for part of that $5 million dollars, and they need your help. As I clicked around the other night trying to find them all (not as easy as it seems) I noticed that plenty of the charities listed below only had a few votes and in some cases I was the first person to vote! That’s not too promising considering that I’ve seen a couple with votes in the hundreds (one of them being Old Friends!).

So, for those of you Facebook this is a no brainer… get clicking! And for those of you not on Facebook, now’s your chance to join with the clear conscious that only helping a charity can provide.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this list is not all inclusive, so please leave a comment with a link if you know of any I missed! There’s no browsing mechanism so I was just searching on terms like “thorougbred”, “racehorse” “jockey” “backstretch” etc to see what I could find. While not specifically racing related, I also gave one of my votes to Wikimedia, aka Wikipedia as without Wikipedia I would know a lot less about racing and it’s history.

So, here’s the list… the name of charity links to the page in Facebook to vote for it. I’ve also included a link to the charity’s website where available. If you have a racing charity and are not yet participating, get over and sign up! And then let me know about it so I can add it here.

AC4H
website

Backstretch Clubhouse
more info

Backstretch Education Fund Inc
website

Backstretch Employee Service Team Of New York Inc (BEST)
website

CANTER (IL)
website

CANTER (OH)
website

CANTER (MI)
website

CANTER (NE)
website

CANTER (PA)
website

Disabled Jockey Endowment

Don Macbeth Memorial Jockey Fund
website

Exceller Fund
website

Florida Thoroughbred Charities Inc
website

Friends of Ferdinand
website

Grayson Jockey Club Research Foundation
website

Illinois Equine Humane Center
website

New England Thoroughbred Retirement Center
website

New Vocations Racehorse Adoption
website

Old Friends
website

Permanently Disabled Jockey’s Fund
website

Racehorse Redemption Inc
more info

ReRun
website

Thoroughbred Charities of America
website

Thoroughbred Rehab Center
more info

Thoroughbred Retirement Center
website

Washington Thoroughbred Foundation
more info

Posted by dana on Dec 06 2009    
Filed Under: Internet, Impressive, 2009, :), You Can Help, Retirement, Rescue, Research, Racing

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I see #11, #10, #9, #5, #4 and #2! (EVENT OF THE YEAR PHOTOS)

It’s getting to be that time of the year, the time for year end polls! Thoroughbred Times unveiled theirs today and it’s pretty good. Last week they asked for some feedback and ideas on Twitter and my suggestion became question 14!

But the three answers on the Thoroughbred Times poll aren’t the only fan friendly moves that took place this year. In fact, I would argue it was a great year to be racing fan. Plenty of talent racing? Check. Exciting and down right historical races? Yep. The industry remembering that owners and breeders are not their only customers? Indeed and a welcome trend it is.

In no particular order other than as they came to me, here’s what I came up with so far, let me know in the comments what else I’ve missed. There could even be more! I didn’t include Churchill’s night racing because of the complaints of the ticket price ($10). But, if you think it belongs in the poll let me know.

BC saddle cloth standardization
Some people didn’t like this while others gave it the big “eh”. This is actually my vote for most player friendly move. I know it helped me to be able to tell who was who both in the warm up and the races.

BC ticket prices
It’s always nice not to be gouged! This move received plenty of positive response in the form of “it’s about time” (the horseplayers version of positive feedback?). It seems to have worked since attendance was up 11%!

BC online ticket sales
It seems so simple yet so few do it, moving ticket sales online might have also helped with the attendance increase. Should I be filling out my Saratoga form yet? Where’s that pen?

CD/KEE/FG in HD
Several tracks started broadcasting their simulcast signals in HD this year and Allicansayiswow! Seriously, this game was meant to be broadcast in HD and not to harp on a point (stage whisper) all the other sports are doing it.

YouBet My ROI
If you don’t have a YouBet account you’re missing out on some serious metrics. With a single click you can determine your ROI by track, bet type, surface, race type, breed, distance, trainer and jockey/driver. I seriously hope this feature is rolled into TwinSpires. TwinSpiresTV + My ROI = perfection.

@BH_RaceResults
Oh ye of little Twitter faith are missing a handy Twitter stream provided by Bloodhorse that provides race results from what seems to be every track. Each result also links to a handy race result page on the Bloodhorse site that provides results, payouts, pedigree information and replays where available.

DRF’s Digitized Archive
The beginnings of the DRF’s outstanding digital archive was rolled out by the Keeneland Library this year. Obviously this is an incredible and important source available for all to use, for free… so feel free to donate while you’re whiling away the hours over there!

DRF Ticketmaker
Making tickets for multi-race exotics is a giant pain, but thanks to DRF you can now get a little help! I don’t get that fancy with the multi-race wagers but the few times I did it took freakin’ forever to make the tickets, and that time is better spent making actual handicapping decisions.

Equibase Scratches Today
We have our pals at HANA to thank for the next two entries. Through their hard work and perseverance on behalf of players everywhere, Equibase now provides real time scratches! Another one to file under “it’s about time”.

Bris/Equibase Free Historical Charts
And finally, some free data for the people! Sure one can quibble that Bris requires a credit card AND your social security number to open an account (and to add insult to injury the SS# is for forgotten password verification! feel free to use a fake SS# when registering, just write it down in case you forget your password! FAIL.). But back to the data, say it with me everyone… “it’s about time!”.

Three cheers and keep up the good work to all in the industry who have pushed for and succeeded in getting innovations and change on behalf of fans and players. THANK YOU!

In our last poll about Lava Man being back in training, the majority of you were cautiously optimistic and jazzed about stem cells. This poll started off in a dead heat. Up until about 16 votes in each category it could have gone to any of the answers. He still hasn’t raced so we’ll just continue to be cautiously optimistic and know that at the very least he’s probably more happy training than hanging out in the pasture.

As always, thanks!

Update - Late Entry!

TwinSpires Cancel Bet
I KNEW I was forgetting something! How many times have you wished you could cancel a bet? (and I’m not talking about after the race!) Of course, the first time I used this featured the bet I canceled ended up being the winning exacta, but that doesn’t mean the feature isn’t innovative and fan friendly!

Posted by dana on Nov 17 2009    
Filed Under: Impressive, 2009, Twitter, HANA, Industry, Poll, Fans, Lava Man, :), Internet, Racing

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(Charles Pravata)

Let’s put aside any discussion about Horse of the Year or Rachel Alexandra vs. Zenyatta for a moment and just enjoy this incredible moment. 13-13 is nothing to sneeze at… thank you Zenyatta, we’re lucky to have you!

Posted by dana on Oct 10 2009    
Filed Under: :), Zenyatta, Impressive, 2009, Charles Pravata, Santa Anita, Race Replay, Inspirational, YouTube, Racing

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(Sarah K. Andrew)

While channel surfing on Travers night I ultimately settled on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon on IFC, the martial arts sensation film of 2000 responsible for igniting a flying choreography craze. I had never seen it and have never been one to watch martial arts films (although that could change). As I was enjoying the stunning fight choreography and excellent cinematography, one scene stood out to me.

One of the film’s main characters is Jen, who is “destined for an arranged marriage and yearning for adventure“. In short, she steals a fancy powerful sword called the Green Destiny and becomes a kick ass martial artist. Naturally when she shows up at Wudan Mountain (kick ass martial arts academy), all the other kick ass martial artists want to challenge her.

There was one scene in particular that had me laughing out loud because it reminded me of Rachel vanquishing her male challengers one after the other. I thought about that scene so much in the week leading up to the Woodward that I bought the DVD and made my first humble attempt at video editing. Without further adieu, I give you Rachel Alexandra, Invincible Sword Goddess:

Be sure to check out Pull the Pocket’s excellent channeling of The Onion and if you haven’t already, Ernie’s Woodward day video.

Posted by dana on Sep 09 2009    
Filed Under: 2009, Rachel Alexandra, Woodward Stakes, Racing History, :), Fans, YouTube, Sarah K. Andrew, Racing

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Sea The Stars makes it look easy in the Irish Championship Stakes at Leopardstown. My only question is if the race call is a DIY by the person who made the video? (No)

Next stop on the Saturday party train, Saratoga!

Posted by dana on Sep 05 2009    
Filed Under: :), 2009, Rachel Alexandra, YouTube, International Racing, Saratoga, Race Replay, Racing

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