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

(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

 Loading ...

7 Comments »

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

(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

 Loading ...

6 Comments »

Tiznow, awaiting his date with Pepper’s Pride (jeandiva)

Seems like a bit of a nutty news day today. Storm Cat will be starting a new career as a Quarter Horse stallion. While it may seem like an odd drop in class, apparently it’s not unheard of.

Storm Cat, 28, is not the first Thoroughbred stallion to sire foals from Quarter Horse mares. Leading sire Alydar did so when he stood at Calumet Farm near Lexington.

“I was told that Hennessy (by Storm Cat) had two stakes winners out of five Quarter Horse mares,” Waldman said about the deceased stallion.

And taking a jump in class in the shed is the recently retired and undefeated record holder Pepper’s Pride, who’s booked to the talented Tiznow. The internets had something to say about both of these news items!

Filed under “this should happen more often” it was announced again that Proud Spell would be returning to training! Since it happens so infrequently I found it just as exciting the second time it was announced as the first!

From the “Hey, wasn’t I just whining for something like this” department, it was announced that CHRB is launching what looks to be an expansive and potentially thorough pilot study of the synthetics surfaces.

“The plan is to have a team to collect data on a daily basis,” Breed said of the pilot study, which he said would involve CHRB investigative staff, track stewards and racetrack maintenance personnel. He said the collection has already started.

“The idea is to find out what the tracks are doing throughout the year,” Breed said.

A soils scientist/engineer, working with veterinarians and in cooperation with horsemen and racing associations, will test the racing surfaces. Synthesizing the results with current research and studies of tracks in other jurisdictions, standards that can be measured and compared would be developed.

A track steward in charge of safey [sic] would be responsible for seeing that the standards, once developed, are enforced.

According to a staff report, the pilot study will address areas of concern such as permeability, absorption of impact at various temperatures, and the effects of climate change and organic contamination.

I wonder if they knew of the dog that did not bark?

And from the “ghosts of Derby’s past” department, Peruvian mystery horse Tomcito from the 2008 derby trail showed up on the work tab yesterday at Palm Meadows Training Center! Ok, I read it today so it seemed like a news item from today.

You may remember that Tomcito did not have enough earnings to make the Derby and had drop out of the Belmont due to congestion. Since then it’s been nothing but silencio hasta ahora.

Albeit, none of these stories are as nutty as a commercial flight landing in the Hudson River around 48th street with only one injury… now THAT’S nutty!

Update: Tomcito worked again today, just three days from his first work in several months. You guessed it, nutty!

Posted by dana on Jan 16 2009    
Filed Under: 2009, Tomcito, Storm Cat, Research, Breeding

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

3 Comments »

Last updated 05/08

I never want to be one of those loud mouth people who complains without making suggestions. In part I thank art school for that. In “crit” classes (critiques - you show your work and discuss it with your fellow students) you’re never allowed to say that you either like or don’t like something without discussing why (at least if your professor is on the ball).

The hardest part of any situation that produces hurt, anger and/or frustration is not being able to unequivocally say “it happened because of X”, “it’s X’s fault”.
When the fault is obvious you have a clear cut place to channel that anger, hurt and/or frustration… or at the very least, a starting to point to understand why it even happened!

What happened in the Derby is a very sad symptom of a lot of complex and interwoven issues. As the media coverage escalates and the “activists” call for our heads, I think it’s our duty to make suggestions about how to proceed. It’s hard, for me at least, to defend our sport (that I love) by saying that we have installed some synthetic tracks. Why? We need to do more, a LOT more.

So here are my ideas. They’re meant to start a discussion that includes gathering more ideas and suggestions, refining these and tying to figure out how to make them actionable. None of these are original ideas and certainly have been discussed elsewhere, but this is meant to compile them into one big list.

Keep 2 things in mind 1) these are ideas, not decrees and 2) that I created this list throughout the day (i.e., haven’t been laboring over it), so consider it a draft or a “brain dump” (one of my most hated corporate expressions, right up there with “bio break”… ). Also, the order is random.

Enough with the caveats, here’s the list…

Collect data on all break downs to determine:
- age, sex, equipment, connections, breeder, race type (general information)
- lineage (any developing patterns in breeding)
- surface type & condition (was the track sealed?, synth, dirt, grass, etc - do tracks keep maintenance records?)
- necropsy (condition that could have been foreseen with a certain exam?)
- New: information should be a publicly accessible database, not just for breeders but for everyone (dana - added 05/06)
- New: convene panel of equine vets to determine parameters for acceptable proportions of height, weight and leg circumference (Aelinie - added 05/08)

Also, let’s find out what other countries are collecting and learning.

Ban whipping
- “most horses will give you everything they have without the whip” - Jerry Baily
- “I think we should do away with whips completely” - Randy Moss
- “…usually the horses that want to run don’t have to be whipped” - Jim Squires
- “Our sport looks to newcomers like a bunch of people beating horses with sticks” - comment at GbG

Ban drugging, period
- Race days meds
- Ban steroids (test before sales)

Create serious consequences
Not only for trainers but for owners and vets - when everyone is on the on the line there is more pressure to adhere. Consequences should also exist across jurisdictions.

Stop over sealing tracks
Create national standards for track maintenance and fine when track conditions are found to be unsafe with bigger fines when horses are injured because of it.

Breeding
- Reduce number of mares covered to a reasonable annual amount - New: 75 - (Cyd - added 05/08)
- Compile data from at least the past 5 years on all recorded breakdowns to find sire patterns (use the first bullet point under “collect data”)
- New: penalties for rushing off to stud - (Superfecta - added 05/06)
- New: stop breeding unraced horses - (Superfecta - added 05/06)
- New: Jockey Club could refuse to register the offspring of stallions who couldn’t at least make a minimal number of starts (Jen R - added 05/08)

Racing Ages
- Do away with 2yo racing and race them longer
- Create race conditions that do not allow horses with sires under 5
- New: Only race 2yo at the end of the year and only on turf - (Katie - added 05/06)
- New: 2yo under saddle sales end - (Katie - added 05/06)
- New: cutting back the distance of 2yo races - (Jen R - added -5/08)

Derby
- Limit the field to 14-16 horses
- Change the graded earnings structure to favor more appropriate horses

BC
- Don’t let Derby aged horses run in the Classic / “Distaff” (as an incentive to keep them running longer)

Educate “consumers”
- Why do people routinely buy horses out of unsound sires?
- Why are unsound horses rushed off the track to breeding career?
- Minimize “demand” through education
- New: make data from breakdowns (mentioned above) publicly accessible so people can do their own research (dana - added 05/06)

Bone Scans
- New: Some sort of sanctioned bone-scanning process before every horse’s next race? Kind of like a sobriety test—you don’t pass the exam, you’re scratched - (Ernie - added 05/05)

Progress
- New: What I would like to see most of all, however, is some progress - (Nick - added 05/06)
- New: Some of these things can be done more quickly than others, like banning racing - set some time lines and communicate about them regularly - (dana - added 05/06)
- New: top to bottom of audit of the whole industry (Jeremy - added 05/07)
- New: National ruling body created should also include a broad cross section of interested parties (Joan - added 05/08)

And lifetime bans for crap like this.

I think the NTRA (Hi Alex!) should create a task force charged with taking a serious look at how to make racing more safe that addresses issues across the board create a national ruling body with the authority to make and enforces changes. Not just synthetic surfaces but looking at all of the above, and possibly more, to see how each thing contributes and what can be done to address it. It’s daunting, but it would be a start. [New]

That’s what I think, what do you think? And I don’t want to hear “you’ll never be able to” or “no one would ever”…

Posted by dana on May 05 2008    
Filed Under: Randy Moss, 2008, Industry, Greed, Drugs, Breeding, Research, Racing

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

14 Comments »

That’s right, mark your calendars y’all because The First Saturday in May will be making it’s week long theatrical run on April 18th in a city near you!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, congrats to the Hennegan Brothers! They’ve partnered with Churchill and Truly Indie to make the distribution deal happen, and if that wasn’t great enough, they’re donating 25% of their box office & a percentage of their DVD sales to Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation.

“Our goal was to make horse racing cool again by telling the stories of the hard-working, dedicated, and resilient individuals who dedicate their lives to the horses they love. As lifelong horse racing fans, the documentation of this film was a true passion of ours.”
    - John Hennegan

I don’t like to bang the old GbG drum too much around here, but check out their new site! One of the reasons I’ve been muttering about being busy is that I redesigned to their site to give them something that had more of the look and feel of the film + something they could update themselves (with my help when they’re busy, like now!). Also, Manny from ThirdEye Design did the two excellent title graphics and Bill Denver of Equiphoto took the photo in the header graphic (which is of Barbaro winning the Derby).

I’m flattered that they asked me to be part of such a kick ass project and honored to have worked with them. They’re as cool as their film and I think one of many signals (such as the TBA), that horse racing in general is undergoing a cultural revival. I know of several folks working on very cool racing related projects! This is just the beginning.

Do yourself a favor, make the effort to go see this film… and preferably more than once!

Posted by dana on Mar 19 2008    
Filed Under: First Saturday in May, Hennegan Brothers, Mainstream Media, TBA, 2008, You Can Help, Research, Fans, Lawyer Ron, Derby Trail, Barbaro, Racing

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

6 Comments »