New Items added! See bottom of post.

Note: this picture is not of the authoress of this site. (birdnest1384)

You’ve probably just walked in from doing all of your holiday shopping, making this list a mute point. But if you’re like me, you’re gonna wait till the last damn minute. Also, if you’re like me, you’re not gonna leave your house to shop. I think Amazon should use the following clip as advertising for why one should stay home to shop:

Here at GbG, we like to support our industry’s independent content creators. And with the recent spate of trade and mainstream media lay-offs, we’re expecting more independent content to support (and enjoy).

Let’s start with independent films. There’s a lot to choose from in this category and at the price point there’s no reason not to get all three! The First Saturday in May, Lost in the Fog and Women in American Racing are perfect stocking stuffers. I’ve seen the first two and both are great. Mother GbG ordered Women in American Racing for me and I’m using all my restraint to not unwrap and watch it (no doubt I will have watched by this time next week).

The First Saturday in May

Lost in the Fog:

Women in American Racing

You have may have noticed that there are a LOT of great photographers shooting racing. GbG would just be a bunch of boring words without their help. While I don’t know that all of them sell prints, you can always ask! I believe Charles Pravata and Sarah K. Andrew sell prints, but there’s also Raymond Haddad, Jason Moran, Bud Morton and new comer/old timer Walter Kobbe. Now that’s a classy present!

Looking to get more involved in racing? Why not give yourself the gift of ownership and join a partnership! There are several small, affordable, independent stables that just happen to be members of the TBA, which means you can read their thoughts and insights on racing and determine if they’re the type of people you want to do business with. My guess is that they are.

That’s Amore Stable has a new Peace Rules filly they’re plenty excited about, Grevelis Racing (blogging at Owning Racehorses) has a few openings in Miss Belle Express as well as some spots in their claiming partnership and Castle Village Farms (blogging at The Business of Racing) has new 2yo partnerships in New York, Florida and Canada.

Moving from the independent to the unique, I’m a big fan of eBay present getting and giving. A quick twirl around eBay this morning uncovered the following.

Wanna spend the big bucks on that Sunday Silence fan? You’re in luck, the 1990 Hollywood Gold Cup saddle cloth worn by Sunday Silence is up for auction, currently at a mere $4,999. The good news is no one has bid on it, so perhaps it will be relisted. I have no idea if that price is reasonable for memorabilia of this caliber, but here’s the race. Sunday Silence gives 1990 horse of the year Criminal Type a run for his money and places by what looks like a nose, very exciting. Imagine the price if he had won!

From one of the highlights of this summer, Little Belle’s saddle cloth from the Alabama is available, starting bid $.99… and no one has bid on it! The auction ends on Thursday so I doubt it will stay low for that long, but I’m watching it just in case. Little Belle was one of the many talented distaffers this year. Here she is showing to Proud Spell and Music Note after setting a very “deliberate” pace, as Durkin puts it.

With only 2 hours and change left to this auction, you might have a chance to own alleged Derby history with Whirlaway’s supposed horse shoe up for auction. The inability to authenticate it is no doubt keeping the price low, currently at $82, but an additional bid has come in since I spotted it this morning, so it might climb up a bit more. It would be very cool if it were in fact the real deal but one could probably never prove it. Fun item nonetheless. Update: it ended up going for $262, an absolute steal if the new owner could manage to authenticate.

From the price is right department (no E, I’m not talking about your beloved Bob Barker), there’s a groovy 70’s Preakness patch currently at $4.99 with no bids. It ends in 4 hours but I would imagine it would be relisted if there are no bids.

I’m sure all of you Alysheba fans are glad he’s returned safely to the States. Why not celebrate that with a copy of the 1988 Monmouth program for the Iselin Handicap? He beat one of his rivals, Bet Twice, by less than a length (sorry, no replay but the link points to a fab Alysheba information page).

I know at least one Spectacular Bid fan, perhaps he might like this 1979 Marlboro Cup Program, which ends tomorrow. Here’s the Bid crushing his competition in the race.

Last but not least, here’s a snazzy little design moment. An Air Mail envelope from Hollywood Turf Club’s Director of Publicity with a 1966 meter stamp. This one ends tomorrow with no bids and currently at $12.50, a great price for a unique piece of history!

Update, new items added!

Thanks to Equidaily, Paulick Report, Pull the Pocket and Raceday 360 for sending so many holiday shoppers over here to the GbG eBay shopping bonanza! Since several of the listed items have ended, I’ve added some new ones for your potential shopping enjoyment.

To avoid anymore Spectacular Bidding wars, this Spectacular Bid item is a first come, first serve with Buy it Now at $32. It’s a lovely vintage (read possibly slightly dingy) Spectacular Bid / Bill Shoemaker 1980 T Shirt size large. If you buy it, please send a photo sporting it! I was going to tell you all about the Spectacular Bid / Bud Delp / Meadowlands (Awesome!) Belt Buckle, but I bought it instead (sorry!). Sidebar, Bud Delp and I share the same eye wear.

Why not bundle this next item with Lost in the Fog? It’s a Russel Baze “I was there #9351″ Pin currently listed at $.99. It was given away on the day Russell Baze broke the record for most wins by a North American jockey. Russell Baze was Lost in the Fog’s jockey.

Speaking of Northern California, here’s something for your favorite Northern California racing fan that happens to be an aficionado of late 70’s design. It’s a lovely 1979 Pin from the recently closed Bay Meadows.

I know several folks who might like this one… 1972 Clairborne Farm Yearling & Horse Catalog, currently listed at $9.99.

Want more programs? 3 Programs from 1983 Suburban / Woodward / Jockey Club Gold Cup programs (a three-fer!), includes Slew O’ Gold & John Henry currently at $9.95.

History buffs should prepare to freak out… 1773 Sporting Calendar described as “The Sporting Calendar: Containing an Account of the Plates, Matches, and Sweepstakes, That Have Been Run for in Great-Britain, Ireland and North-America in the Year 1773. (Volume 5) by Thomas Fawconer” currently $200(ish, it’s in GBP).

And how about a couple of items for our harness racing friends? There’s the 1931 American Sportsman featuring 1930 Hambletonian winner Hanover’s Bertha currently at $14.99 and a First Edition 1949 “Horses of Destiny” by Fairfax Downey and Paul Brown currently at $25.29 to name a few.

STILL not inspired? As mentioned before Geno has a nice list and for the more bookish MaryJean Wall has an excellent vintage reading list complete with original covers. Raceday360 is also handily keeping track of all gift suggestion posts! Best of luck with your shopping, and here’s ho ho hoping you get some rockin’ gifts too!

Posted by dana on Dec 13 2008    
Filed Under: 2008, Partnerships, Monmouth Park, Proud Spell, Raymond Haddad, Racing History, Bud Morton, Jason Moran, TBA, Sarah K. Andrew, Hollywood Park, Race Replay, Belmont, Tom Durkin, Film, Charles Pravata, YouTube, First Saturday in May, Racing

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(spin979)

Just when you thought you’d heard all the stories there are to be told about the Breeder’s Cup, here’s one more… the TBA is full of kick ass handicappers!

We have an evolving tradition of posting our picks for big events. For last year’s BC we posted them on Patrick’s blog (I picked 3 winners). I believe we posted our picks for the Derby card by way of Google docs but can’t find them (does anyone have that link?).

This year, we posted our BC picks on the TBA homepage (permalink here). We picked a winner for each race and used a mythical $2 WPS bet to track how we faired.

At first I was bummed, using this method I didn’t break even. Then I realized that I picked FOUR winners, which is not too shabby. In fact, not only did I pick 4 winners, so did 4 other folks AND Michael of Gathering the Wind picked FIVE winners! This prompted me to look around a bit to see how fared against others.

The NTRA posted, in their words, Expert Picks, which indeed did include many an expert. How did we do compared to them? Pretty damn good! None of the experts at NTRA picked 5 winners and only Larry Borstein and Mike Watchmaker picked 4!

Let’s look a little closer at the TBA picks. Not only were we impressive in the straight up picking winners department, but our In the Money (ITM) percentages were pretty darn good too. Kevin of Colin’s Ghost was 9/14 ITM for a whopping 64%… take that Pletcher, Asmussen, Dutrow! Also, 17 of the 18 TBA handicappers were 29% or above ITM!

Google docs spreadsheet didn’t let me link the blog name but you can link directly to them by using the TBA navigation to the right, except for the Magic Beer Bottle, which you can find here.

Congrats TBA handicappers, I’d say we did as well as fillies and Euros this year!

Posted by dana on Nov 02 2008    
Filed Under: 2008, Picks, TBA, NTRA, Breeders' Cup, Handicapping, Racing

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How does one go about creating new fans anyway? (E-BAD)

The rumor is true, I’m 42… oh, and I’m on the “newly created marketing task force” empaneled by Social Sphere and NTRA.

In addition to the folks mentioned by name and age in the press release, fellow TBA-ers Superfecta and Alan are involved as well as Alex Brown with an occasional guest appearance by Derek Simon. I’m not entirely sure if the other folks who don’t have web presences want their names out there so I will just say that there are few other bright and passionate folks on the team (and add their names if they mention it’s ok).

We’ve been asked to “Develop a plan to market the sport to a new generation of fans”.

Over the course of about six weeks, the group will be spending dozens of hours meeting, debating, and challenging each other’s assumptions — the results of which they will present to the industry at the NTRA Marketing Summit.

The emphasis is mine. Debating? Check. Challenging each other’s assumptions? Check. You can’t get a bunch of bloggers in a virtual room without there being some disagreement, although it seems by the press release that this is by design. The good news is (not that there’s any bad news) that there’s no shortage of ideas!

One would think it’s easy to answer that question the way we all hold forth on our blogs, taking about how the industry should do this and the industry should do that. Putting it all together in a cohesive plan (as a group) is another story.

So, dear readers, if the NTRA called you up and said “Hey, tell me how you would create new fans… and guess what, you can’t spend any money on it”, what would you recommend?

Should tracks focus on getting their customer service act together? Should there just generally be better communication with fans? Would the ability to watch and wager on all tracks woo new folks to the siren song of horse racing? Would better TV coverage do the trick? How about stopping early retirement or redesigning NTRA.com… or having more mainstream fantasy horse racing? Would having standing save us? Hey, there’s always marketing (but to who? We’ll try to answer that in our next poll!).

Feel free to pontificate, share, hold forth, share photos of burned muffins and/or spout off in the comments (you know, the usual).

In our last poll it was a dead heat, 15/15 for Music Note in Travers vs. The Alabama… ultimately I’m glad she ran in the Alabama but am bummed there will be no rematch with Proud Spell (should this sort of thing be in the poll too?).

As always, thanks for sharing!

Update: many thanks to everyone for sharing your thoughts and ideas! Thanks to Equidaily and Paulick for the links as well!

I highly encourage you to go to Self Appointed Fan Committee and submit your ideas and rants there as well. We compile monthly reports and send them directly to the places most appropriate for the idea or rant (NTRA, various tracks, AGSC, TVG, Jockey Club, etc). Who knows what we’ll end up with as a presentation, but by submitting to SAFC you’re ideas are being sent directly to the folks who could do something about it!

Posted by dana on Aug 20 2008    
Filed Under: Proud Spell, Poll, 2008, Industry, Standings, Becoming a Fan, Self Appointed Fan Committee, Internet, TBA, Marketing, Ads, Let Horses Race, TV, NTRA, Mainstream Media, You Can Help, Racing

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Should Big Brown run in the Haskell, he will be “Running for Re-Run“, a program that donates a portion of the win/place proceeds to the rescue group Re-Run.

Here at GbG we encourage finding innovative ways to donate to thoroughbred rescue and safe retirement, perhaps IEAH can shame some other high profile owners into joining this excellent program! Eric Fein ran Big Truck for Re-Run in the Derby and fellow TBA-er Steve Zorn of Castle Village Farms also takes part in the program. Maybe IEAH should run ALL of their many acquisition holdings for Re-Run!

Posted by dana on Jul 30 2008    
Filed Under: 2008, Industry, Big Brown, TBA, :), Retirement Watch, Rescue, Racing

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Nobiz Like Shobiz will stand at Darby Dan in 2009 (Sarah K Andrew)

Earlier this week I noticed two items over at Bloodhorse in the breeding section. GbG horse of interest War Emblem seems to be making progress in his “recovery”!

You may remember that there was a time when he wasn’t covering any mares even though he was fully functional, so to speak. He was prescribed what the article calls “intensive therapy” including relocation, changes in breeding shed handling and hormone supplements… and guess what, it’s working!

Although, apparently he’s still choosy:

“Now about 70% are OK for him, but the other 30% remain very difficult,” Dr. Nobuo Tsunoda said. “And if he hates a type of mare, he attacks them.”

Some of War Emblem’s peculiarities have included a dislike for large mares and an attraction to chestnuts over females of other colors, said Shadai spokesperson Mariko Yoshida.

He’s already covered 30 mares this year and 20 are in foal to him. Keep up the good work War Emblem!

Another GbG fav, Nobiz Like Shobiz, has finally been placed at Darby Dan where he’ll stand for 2009. No fee has been set.

Moving on now to money… there are two interesting posts from fellow TBA-ers today around the economics of the game. Cangamble has a thoughtful post on Take Out with an great comment thread and Steve Zorn has an in-depth and eye opening post on the economics of ownership. Both are great reads.

And last but not least, did you know that Belmont has a chicken hawk? No, not that little bird who followed Foghorn Leghorn around or an old man who likes young boys… a red tailed hawk! Jason captured a couple of shots of Belmont’s own bird of prey this weekend… guard your hot dogs and perhaps small children!

Posted by dana on Jul 16 2008    
Filed Under: War Emblem, TBA, 2008, Industry, Sarah K. Andrew, Nobiz Like Shobiz, Breeding, Gambling, Belmont, Racing

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