Watching the Eclipse Awards the other night on uStream, I was struck by how many folks went out of their way to mention not only the importance of fans, but the importance of NEW FANS. As the co-founder of a fan education site, I couldn’t agree more!

As we look to the future, we must also pass on our passion and excitement for this glorious sport to the next generation. It is our obligation. A candle loses nothing by lighting another.

- Mary Lou Whitney

As you already know Blind Luck will continue to race this year and I hope in some small way we’re able to bring some new people to the race track.

- Dr. Mark Dedomenico, one of Blind Luck’s owners

Those were just a few of the mentions of the importance and desire to bring new fans to the game… not to be too optimistic, but I think we can help.

In addition publishing posts for beginners, we also have a variety of intermediate level posts geared towards deepening the relationship of the casual and/or curious fans. For example, last year we did a Figs Gone Wild series and a variety of wagering strategy pieces (in addition to many other pieces, stop by!). But we also offer folks other ways to learn about racing, such as our excellent regular feature of Ten Things You Should Know About by Kevin Martin of Colin’s Ghost that profiles races or our Derby Prep Alert mailing that brings the Derby and Oaks prep season to casual and curious. This year’s starts on Friday so get your curious peeps to sign up!

We plan on building on our platform this year by adding horse profiles, track guides and focusing on posts that help new players create and/or refine their practice. As you can imagine, not only does all this take time, it takes money.

So, I’d like to cordially invite all of those industry entities that are interested in the creation of new fans to support our efforts!

We even offer you a variety of ways to do so:

1. Advertise in our Ad Network
We have an extensive network of excellent blogs, forums and independent media sites that could be displaying your ad above the fold. This helps to fund to the creation of new fans because we use our portion of the proceeds to fund the creation of content at HRF (yes, we pay our contributors!). Find out more about our network here.

2. Advertise your product on one of our sites
If potential, new and/or casual fans are not really your demographic, we also could also advertise your product on Raceday 360, a site we acquired this year from horse racing’s original blogger, Jessica Chapel (who’s also a HRF Contributor!). Any ad money derived from either of our sites goes to content creation on HRF. Well, and other business expenses such as hosting, etc.

3. Just give us cash
If you don’t really have anything to advertise but just want to help, you could always give us cash! Just sent it to paypal at hello race fans dot com.

4. Link to us
We love cash and it certainly keeps the site going but making it easy for folks to find the site helps too!

We’re working on a proper media kit targeted for Q2, but you could call us at 1-800-801-0931 or reach us here to get the ball rolling.

I’d also like to thank those in the industry who have supported us so far:

Advertisers:
Breeders’ Cup (charter advertiser)
West Point Thoroughbreds (charter advertiser)
Link2Bet
TwinSpires
Churchill Downs
NJSEA
Totebet
Breeders’ Crown
UTSA Back to the Track
Laurel Park
Sam Houston
Off to a Flying Start
One Minute Handicapper
Mutuels Online

Links:
Breeders’ Cup 360
The Preakness site
The Belmont Stakes site
Laurel Park
Pimlico
Turfway Park
Horseracing Nation
The First Saturday in May

A special shout out goes out to Breeders’ Cup for mentioning us on-air during the 2009 Friday telecast and Claire Novak & Joe Depaolo for having me on their radio show over the summer.

Plenty of individuals have supported us too, and we greatly appreciate it. There are far too many to list but all of contributors (including folks who participate in our Indexes) and publishers are among them.

If you’re looking for folks in the industry who actively support the creation of new fans and retention of budding fans, look no further than this list. A list you can easily add your organization too!

Posted by dana on Jan 19 2011    
Filed Under: 2011, Hello Race Fans, Industry, Fans

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My view of the Juvenile Turf post parade at this year’s stellar BC… thankful!

Since it’s been awhile, I thought I’d take a moment to enumerate some of the things I’m thankful for this year… plus it was really fun to watch replays for the past couple of hours!

In no specific order:

1. Knowing that, should they stay sound, Blind Luck, Paddy o’Prado, Sidney’s Candy, and Gio Ponti will all be coming back next year.

2. The first crop of some of the excellent 2004 crop is right around the corner!

3. Getting to see videos like this and this (thanks E!)

4. On the rare occasion when I get my shut-in self out to the track, getting to see, meet and hang out with a bunch of great people (far too many to list, basically, if I saw you at the track this year, you’re on the list and if I missed you at the track this year, I hope to be thankful to have seen you next year).

5. Adding a few new tracks to my collection of visited tracks, here’s to adding a few more next year.

5. All the contributors, readers and supporters of Hello Race Fans! and Raceday 360, all of the publishers in Hello Race Fans Ad Network and the advertisers who chose our Ad Network to publicize their products or events. Many, MANY thanks to all of you!

6. Having seen races such as these, some with my own eyes!

Kentucky Oaks

Ogden Phipps

United Nations Handicap

Prioress

Debutante Stakes

Test Stakes

Alfred G Vanderbilt Handicap

La Jolla Handicap

Del Mar Debutante

Norfolk Stakes

Breeders’ Cup Mile

Breeders’ Cup Classic

Here’s hoping that we all have much to thankful for again next year!

Posted by dana on Nov 25 2010    
Filed Under: Giving Thanks, 2010, Zenyatta, Breeders' Cup, Fans

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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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(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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(raymond)

I’ve noticed several comments, tweets and at least one post about Calvin’s use of the whip on Rachel. My only question is, what took you so long? Did people just now notice that American jocks whip horses too much?

Check out Calvin’s ride of Lady Joanne in the 2007 Alabama (not on YouTube, sorry!) or Mike Smith on Tiago in the Santa Anita Derby:

(partymanners)

And these are just two that came to mind immediately. AND how about all those horses who aren’t Rachel Alexandra, Lady Joanne or Tiago?

If Rachel can get some meaningful discussion going about use of the whip it will be one more stellar accomplishment for her to add to her impressive resume. It’s easy to blame the jocks, lord knows I’ve done it, but the issue is bigger than that. We have vague rules that are hard to enforce which makes it that much harder for stewards to actually do something about it.

I’m a huge fan of whip reform. Sadly as regular fans and players we’re all used to it but commenter ljk summed it up nicely on a post last year when he said:

I’ll say it again: to newcomers our sport looks like people with sticks beating horses to make them run

Word.

Posted by dana on Sep 08 2009    
Filed Under: Stewards, The Whip, 2009, Mike Smith, Rachel Alexandra, Twitter, Raymond Haddad, Internet, Grrrr, Fans, Tiago, Race Replay, YouTube, Calvin Borel, Racing

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