Ho Ho Hotb

Sitting around the channel 11 yule log with no racing to watch, I thought I’d take a moment to compose a little blog post as there hasn’t been much going on here at GbG. However, I have managed to choke out a few pieces here and there. Grab some nog and let’s review!

While we’re working on the more fully featured, content rich site at Hello Race Fans we have a nice series going called “Letters to a New Horseplayer“. We’ve asked a wide variety of professional racing folks and regular players to share their thoughts with potential new fans and players.

There’s some great stuff over there and we’ll be rolling out more in the coming months. I recently added mine, which I sort of wrote to myself if I had the ability to go back in time. I would have been really jazzed to stumble upon them as a super-newbie and our hopes for the entire site is to make it easy for potential new fans/players to connect and engage with racing (fingers crossed!).

You’d never know it until today but I’m also participating in the r2 collective, brain-child of Dean from Pull the Pocket. Claire Novak recently took notice of all Dean’s hard work, he’s definitely been on a roll!

His vision for the project is to have a place where industry professionals can look for inspiration, discussion and thought about how better to utilize technology to enable better products, more effective marketing and/or better customer experience. Both Jessica and I have finally starting contributing with the recent series “Top 5 Innovations of the Decade” where we polled a nice panel of independent industry media folk for their top 5 innovations of the decade. We’re up to #2, race replays, which I wrote. Monday we’ll unveil #1.

If you’re a fan of lists and/or compilations, you should keep tabs on Jessica’s list of lists. She’s compiling all of the end of the year/decade posts. There’s quite a few and no doubt there will be more by the end of next week. I won’t be doing one, or at least I’m not planning on it! However, I will have a decade related poll next week.

Thanks to all of you who made your way over to Facebook to vote the many deserving racing charities in the Chase Community Giving project. No racing charities made it to round #2 but a charity frequently supported by racing, the Susan G. Korman “For the Cure”, did make it.

If I had a holiday wish this season, it would be to see the industry support it’s own more often and particularly in the high profile circumstances where non-racing related charities tend to get the most support by our industry. Not only would it help raise awareness for the racing related charities, it would probably be some inherent “positive” marketing by showcasing an industry that’s concerned and supportive of it’s equine and human athletes.

And if Race For Education exists, why can’t something similar be set up to make it easy for owners to donate to safe retirement, injured jockey funds as well as education for family members of backstretch workers (which I think is fantastic, btw).

The way it works is that owners nominate their horse(s) to be part of the program, the owner decides how much of a percentage of their winnings get donated and the horsemen’s bookkeepers make the deductions directly from the purse distributions. Hats off to Race for Education for making it so easy for folks to donate, let’s hope for more inspired industry support in the coming decade!

Also in the inspired giving department, Kevin of Colin’s Ghost (who’s got a nice contribution to the Letter series at HRF!) has decided to use the Hello Race Fans Ad Network as his own form of giving. He’s donating all of his advertising proceeds to the DRF Preservation Fund. We’re happy that’s he’s chosen the HRF network for what can only be described as adver-giving (or is that charity-tizing?)!

And until tomorrow when racing is back in action, enjoy this odd “holiday” clip from the NYC OTB channel. Last year they just had the wreath pictured above but this year they’ve branched out and are toggling between several “wintery”(?) vignettes including ice skating and the New York Harbor. Please note the shaky camera is there’s not mine. Let’s hope this high quality programming is not shades of things to come for New York ADW users. Happy holidays y’all!

Posted by dana on Dec 25 2009    
Filed Under: Becoming a Fan, 2009, Hello Race Fans, r2 collective, Industry, You Can Help, Retirement, Rescue, OTB, Research, Racing

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While I was scanning headlines tonight I came across this little item… Boboman Retired, will stand at Walmac Farm.

The eight-year-old Kingmambo horse out of Slewvera, by Seattle Slew, was bred in Kentucky by Wertheimer & Frere. A winner at two, he raced in the United States for Racing Hall of Fame trainer Richard Mandella and won the 2006 Hollywood Turf Cup Stakes (G1) in his stakes debut.

Boboman also ran third to Lava Man on the main track in the 2007 Santa Anita Handicap (G1). Overall, he won four of 17 starts with five third-place finishes and earnings of $444,363.

First off, he wasn’t already retired? When was the last time he raced? But moving on to the real reason I bring him up, he was a crucial sign post for me on the road to spotting and loving horses poised to make a jump in class.

Right after the Breeders’ Cup 2006 was when I had the fever, all I wanted to do was handicap. Swifty and I devised a plan where we would pick a race or two every weekend and give ourselves a fake $50 per race to wager with as “practice” (this was before we discovered ADW accounts). The 2006 Hollywood Turf Cup was one of those races (past performance).

Part of our plan was that we kept a spreadsheet with our picks and reasoning. I distinctly remember being on the phone discussing this race. One of the first things out of both of our mouths was that we didn’t get Boboman’s odds (9-1) considering this was a G1, his first stakes race and that horses like Artiste Royal, TH Approval, Cosmonaut and Meteor Storm were proven in graded company. Sure, he was coming off two wins but WTF?

My notes & wager where:
Artiste Royal closer close on TH Approval’s heels every race.
$16 WPS Artiste Royal (wow, I’ve come a long way!) and $2 on long shot Mighty Mysterious.

And Swifty’s notes & wager were:
TH Approval horse to beat but Symphony Sid & Boboman wild cards
$50 Place TH Approval (not sure what’s worse, the place bet or noting Boboman and not (fake) wagering… he’s also come a long way!)

No replay over at YouTube but he sat off a moderate pace and then came on strong to win by a length… and he did it with relative visual ease (chart - full card). Swifty and I immediately got on the phone after the race and in unison said “Boboman” in that “duuuh” tone when you overlook something that you shouldn’t have. We also went on to discuss class jumps and how our classy safe picks had bombed. For awhile “Boboman” was our shorthand for horse poised to make a jump in class.

Learning this lesson has served me well over the past few years as finding a horse poised to make a jump is one my favorite angles. Thank you Boboman, have a great retirement!

Posted by dana on Oct 22 2009    
Filed Under: Learning Lessons, 2009, Becoming a Fan, Retirement, Racing

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Gio Ponti in the Man o’War (Mickey Frome)

Since today was the perfect July afternoon, I can now complete my apples to apples handle and attendance comparison to Mother Goose day (which is great because I was starting to get a little tired of doing it).

Both Saturday June 27th and Saturday July 11th boasted beautiful weather and a single Grade 1 on the card.

Saturday June 27th, 2009:
Belmont Park Attendance: 13352
On Track Mutuel Pool: $1,357,534
ITW Mutuel Pool: $2,657,212
ISW Mutuel Pool: $8,361,822

Saturday July 11th, 2009:
Belmont Park Attendance: 6735
On Track Mutuel Pool: $1,283,177
ITW Mutuel Pool: $2,821,920
ISW Mutuel Pool: $8,312,667

Mother Goose day had an increase of:
6617 / 49% in attendance
$74,357 / 5% of on track handle
$49,155 / 1% in interstate wagering (ISW)

No doubt some will dismiss the on track handle increase because it’s relatively small compared to the near 50% attendance increase, however it’s still an increase.

Does that mean having and marketing stars will “save racing”? Not by itself, but it certainly helps get people to track, and in my experience (both of my own when I started going to the track and with folks I’ve taken) if they keep coming back they start to wager more as they get more comfortable. And who doesn’t want that to happen?

Posted by dana on Jul 11 2009    
Filed Under: 2009, Handle, Becoming a Fan, NYRA, Belmont, Marketing, Racing

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Asiatic Boy and his long body (Capitol149)

Because I’m only doing posts about things that have already been posted about today, here’s a recap of yesterday at Belmont!

Swifty’s birthday has usually been celebrated at the track and this year was no different. Teresa had been trying to organize a birthday gathering at NYRA’s new Top of the Stretch picnic areas so I suggested to Swifty (out of total self-interest) that maybe we should get in on that action and have a co-birthday party. The results? It crushed the field.

The area itself was great, apparently it was so muddy that our little pen required some straw to hide the mud. This added a nice barn-like ambiance to the affair. There was a festive air amongst all the Top of the Stretch-ers. On one side was a group of young-ish folks who enthusiastically (and drunkenly) hooted and hollered regardless of the outcome of any race (although a couple of them seemed to cash big in a couple of instances) and what looked to be a children’s birthday party on the other side.

We had a great assortment of well wishers for our co-birthday hosts. Naturally, Papa Backstretch was in attendance, which afforded me the opportunity to try to get a little information out of him. After picking the winner in the second, he gave up that he liked the drop in class with the cut back. He even let me know which horse he liked with at least 5 minutes to post once (he must have forgotten himself for a moment!). No doubt I’ll be trying to get more info out of him in a couple of weeks at Saratoga.

Trying to spy on Papa Backstretch, who worked diligently as the party went on around him

Swifty’s crowd included some folks who had gone to the track with us before and some who hadn’t. Not only did everyone enjoy themselves, many seemed to marvel at just how much fun they had “I can’t believe I spent 5 hours at the track, and it was GREAT!” exclaimed one first time guest, who’s 5ish year old daughter cashed on Trusted Heart (pictured below).

Guests marked their beverages while a new chapter of Future Handicappers of America was started

Several folks cashed on name plays, including our grill master Dan who naturally had Dantastic. His wife, a martial arts enthusiast had a nice $73 score with Offensive Attack. She also boxed him with Hero Figure (”I like fighting”). The Ben in the group did not get as lucky as Dan with Just Ben, but don’t feel too bad for him, he also had Offensive Attack!

Yours truly had a somewhat lousy day at the windows. I was too busy eating hot dogs and chatting with all the fab guests which included Andy Serling (now on Twitter!), Dave Grening, Bill Tivenan & Cassandra Cook who authored the excellent Off to Flying Start (more on that to come!), Jessica & Mr. Railbird and various members of the NYRA press office.

It’s always a pleasure when Mrs. Swifty comes to the track as she’s a very knowledgeable horsewoman who’s great to have around during the parade. Fortunately for my quickly shrinking voucher, Dry Martini jumped out at both of us. I liked only horses that had done well at the distance (Asiatic Boy, Rising Moon and Finallymadeit) and was hoping they would look ready to rock in the parade.

Seeing Asiatic Boy’s odds plummet, I was very interested in Mrs. Swifty’s take… when he galloped by she made a somewhat delighted “oh!” and confirmed that he looked good, in particular she liked his long body (something I would never notice or even know why I should I notice). Ready’s Echo also stood out to both of us but I felt strongly that he couldn’t get the distance… but damn he looked good! I put him in a dime super with Dry Martini, Asiatic Boy and Rising Moon… almost!

No doubt we’ll be doing this whole affair again next year but we had a such blast that we were talking about doing it again in the fall. If you’re a local with a will to picnic, you should definitely book a day at the Top of the Stretch… and take some potential new fans, will you?

Posted by dana on Jul 05 2009    
Filed Under: Superfecta, Becoming a Fan, Payouts, 2009, Geldings, NYRA, Gambling, Fans, Belmont, Racing

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(fauxrealphotos)

Dan Liebman’s post today on Bravo brings up (and over looks) some interesting points. He correctly points out that ESPN “decides for us what is sport and what is not, and what we will be able to watch”, although admittedly this is a construct of media in general.

He puts the icing on the cake by saying:

Apparently, it is more important to find out who is the world’s strongest man than who is the world’s best Thoroughbred.

However, the real missed opportunity in this discussion is main stream marketing or lack of it.

Lower interest in racing can be attributed to several things, among them more choices today for viewers and the fact many core fans are watching on HRTV or TVG, or at a simulcast or off-track betting facility. While HRTV and TVG serve racing’s core, they do little to help cultivate new racing fans. It’s doubtful other, smaller cable networks will either.

I don’t think it matters what channel racing is on as long as it’s marketed, after all, people can’t get interested in what they don’t know about. Look at the success of Jockeys on Animal Planet of all places. Remember how concerned we were with their crazy breakdown-a-palooza promotion? It didn’t matter, the show was success… and it couldn’t have been a success if they had just hoped people would find it. Sound like a familiar approach?

In regards to Bravo, Patrick at Handride argues that positioning racing as cultural phenomenon will be racing’s undoing as far as growth goes. An interesting comment thread ensues that explores the oft debated sport vs. gambling angle. Additionally, the tweet-o-sphere disagreed with him on the cultural phenomenon part. I don’t think it matters one way or another with no mainstream marketing.

Prior to Liebman’s post today, Jason Moran pointed out the World Wide Sports angle here at GbG over the weekend. He makes some great points and in fact he has shared other interesting thoughts about sports coverage here at GbG in the past. The Wide World of Sports idea is particularly interesting because, as several commenters at Bloodhorse point out, racing telecasts that go on for hours are pretty boring. The other side of that coin is what Moran has pointed out before, that NBC knew how to tell stories and fill the seemingly long space between races with interesting, well told stories.

I’m no sports maven, in fact I can emphatically say that I don’t give a shit about sports, but look at the NBA & TNT. Is TNT a sports channel? No, it’s the home of Drama. That’s actually a pretty brilliant hook for any kind of sport or game if you ask me. And guess what, they market it!

I think the bottom line is that, regardless of whether it’s locally or nationally, if we’re really concerned about growth then racing ought to start marketing itself to more than the existing fan base.

Posted by dana on Mar 17 2009    
Filed Under: Becoming a Fan, Industry, 2009, Jockeys TV Show, Twitter, Kentucky Oaks, Internet, Marketing, TV, Dan Liebman, Mainstream Media, Racing

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