I love you Las Virgenes!* (Charles Pravata)

Sure, we all have a horse crush (or two!), but do we also have race crushes? I’m pretty sure we do, or at least I do. I validated this concept with a friend who said:

Interesting, I think I have a similar thing for the Alabama. If I’m not already a fan of the winner, I become one. If I am a fan, I become a super fan.

My race crushes? The Las Virgenes and Risen Star. These races sealed my super fandom of Stardom Bound, Blind Luck and Pyro and made me a fan of Friesan Fire and Ron the Greek. So far things are validating this theory as I’m now a big fan of Zazu and should Machen win the Risen Star I’m sure to be a super fan.

And speaking of the Las Virgenes, here’s what I had to say about it in the Derby Prep Alert mailing for Hello Race Fans:

There’s plenty of speed in this race as May Day Rose, California Nectar, Plum Pretty and Tiz the Route all have wire-to-wire wins to their credit. Of these, California Nectar has proven she can sit off the pace and still win, but with this many front-runners, there could very well be a speed duel. This would set the race up well for Turbulent Descent, and it’s certainly her race to lose, but it also sets the race up for Zazu, Bluegrass Chatter and possibly California Nectar if she doesn’t throw down with May Day Rose. On the other hand, Santa Anita has been more than kind to speed horses, so perhaps the advantage goes to whoever gets and keeps the lead.

Zazu or California Nectar looks the most likely to pull the upset if Turbulent Descent doesn’t get the job done. Like favored Dancinginherdreams in the Forward Gal, she might need a race. If Zazu can improve upon her last effort and stay focused in the stretch, I think she can score her first graded win.

And here’s how it unfolded:

The Derby Prep Alert is mailed every Friday.

But back to the question at hand, which are your races crushes?

* Super fan note: I own Stardom Bound’s saddle towel from the Las Virgenes!

Posted by dana on Feb 06 2011    
Filed Under: 2011, Hello Race Fans, Racing

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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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(Jamie Newell)

If I had done much blogging this year I might be inclined to let you know which posts I thought were my best. Or, if I were feeling clever, I could list the posts I *almost* did, such as a turnabout is fair play post about how I dropped the ball at HRF by not promoting the Derby Prep Alert during our fantastic Breeders’ Cup traffic (thanks to Breeders’ Cup 360!) or the post about Santa Anita not being able to post their own replays on YouTube (not to worry, I’ve lined up someone better than me to address that issue over here!).

But truth be told, 2010 was a whirlwind with the launch of Hello Race Fans! and the acquisition of Raceday 360. And I’m very grateful to all involved!

So here’s hoping 2011 brings the kind of year we’ll all look back on fondly…

Posted by dana on Dec 31 2010    
Filed Under: 2010, Hello Race Fans, Farewell, Racing

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I’ve been at both of Forever Together’s winning Diana’s and both were impressive. Moronic planning is keeping me from personally attending this year’s rendition, but I’ll watching and rooting (but playing a win a bet on Shared Account, who I think really has a shot… see, one can be a gambler and a fan!).

It should be noted in the work prior to last year’s victory Forever Together worked a gaudy 57H! Looking at her current works makes me think that today is the day she’ll break her losing snap (and yes, I’ll also have a sizable exacta of Forever Together over Shared Account… see Kevin’s excellent post on Playing Favorites at Hello Race Fans!).

Here’s the champ (I’ll always call her that, even if she’s not a reigning a champ this year) after last year’s Diana. I love how pleased her groom was and the crowd really cheered as she walked by, it was a great moment.

And now the replays…

2009 Diana Stakes Replay

2008 Diana Stakes Replay

Even though we’re not together this year, I hope the champ gets her third Diana, a race I will always think of as hers.

Update: Forever Together put in her usual classy effort but got third in a head bob to Proviso and Shared Account.

Posted by dana on Jul 31 2010    
Filed Under: Hello Race Fans, 2010, YouTube, Turf, Race Replay, Saratoga

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(Mark_Baratelli)

Sponsors! In a time of shrinking budgets it’s extremely cheery making when an advertiser choses the Hello Race Fans Ad Network to publicize their events and products. A big thanks to our current our advertisers!

Sam Houston is running a geo-targeted campaign, so if you’re in the Houston area and you see the Sam Houston ad, click on over and check them out… and get yourself to the track!

Totebet offers a sign-up bonus, rebates and co-mingles funds into the track’s pools. If you’re looking for a new platform, click on over!

And finally, Monmouth/Meadowlands has started a campaign with us… their incredibly fun Survival at the Shore game is back! Click on over and sign-up!

Again, many thanks to our sponsors! We hope we can help get the word out about their products… and in turn we’re grateful not only for the support of independent content publishers (and our Fan Education site, which is what we use our portions of the ad revenue for!), but for the chance to help them broaden the reach of their brands.

Please visit our sponsors when you see their ads!

(And now that we’ve reached part 3, I will retire Reasons to be Cheerful, even if there continue to be more reasons)

Posted by dana on May 08 2010    
Filed Under: Hello Race Fans, 2010, Internet, Monmouth Park, You Can Help, Site Related, Ads

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