Encore Saritta, my 2009 fantasy ownership pick (West Point Thoroughbreds)

Every year (ok, starting last year) I pick a couple of West Point Thoroughbred offerings sort of as a “fantasy ownership” situation. I can’t swing the kind of dough necessary to buy in to their partnerships (or any for that matter) so I live vicariously and “practice” the art of the biggest wager in horse racing, ownership.

Last year I did alright, I liked Macho Again (great pick!) and Erin’s Golden Star (who? she’s a solid allowance level horse based at Philly Park).

Since I have yet to learn anything about pedigrees I used a skill I’ve been honing all year to make my selection, looking at them. This year I have only one pick and it’s Encore Saritta. I wanted to get this post about before she debuted, but Swifty can attest that she was my pick prior to her debut and win.

I kept searching for her to add to my DRF horse watch but some how missed her. I was alerted to her debut after the fact by Blood Horse’s nifty race results twitter feed.

You can see her debut race here, courtesy of Blood Horse’s also nifty domestic race replay section.

According to West Point’s site:

Under Robby Albarado, the speedy chestnut filly broke alertly and dueled on the lead down the backstretch under quick fractions of 21.75 and 45.35. At the top of the stretch, she opened a four length lead. After a few green strides in the stretch and several heart-pounding moments for the West Point team, the black and gold crossed the wire first. Encore Saritta stopped the teletimer in a solid 58.17 seconds.

Game doesn’t even begin to describe it as she battled through those fractions and pulled away but the green part was pretty hilarious. Needless to say I was annoyed that she paid $22 and I missed it, but I’m totally looking forward to seeing how my fantasy ownership selection plays out. Go Encore Saritta!

Posted by dana on Aug 11 2009    
Filed Under: Twitter, Encore Saritta, West Point Thoroughbreds, 2yo, Saratoga, Maiden, Racing

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Your ad here! (jk+too)

You may have noticed over the past week that there’s a new ad space over there on the right. Not only here at GbG but on several sites. The little tag hanging there below the ad says “HRF Ad Network”. What?

The Hello Race Fans Ad Network is one of two projects Swifty and I have been working on for the better part of a year. After seeing my traffic go up basically every month since I’ve started blogging and noticing that there are new independent blogs and sites continually popping up, we thought it was a good idea to bring as many of them together as possible to 1) create an excellent new opportunity for advertisers to easily reach racing fans and 2) give everyone in the network a stronger bargaining position as we’re more attractive to advertisers as a group than individually.

I’m happy to say that so far it seems to be working! We were lucky enough to get two outstanding charter advertisers, West Point Thoroughbreds and the Breeders’ Cup. Rock out!

Please visit our sponsors by clicking on their banners when you see them on our sites. As individual publishers in the network we don’t get paid any more for you clicking on the ad but it’s a great way to reward those organizations that were willing to take a chance on a new small company AND support independent content creators.

And now a word about our sponsors…

West Point has been an undisputed leader in bringing the ownership experience to an increasingly wider audience. They consistently campaign some of the most exciting horses in training and are always finding ways to support the industry. Their FATE Initiative asks that all of us to try to introduce new folks to racing, a technique that Swifty actually employed on me (so you know it works!). We’re pleased to have West Point continue to lead the way by signing on with us as an advertiser… when you see a West Point ad over there in the HRF ad spot, click on over and check out their current offerings or check out what founder and President Terry Finley is blogging about in his weekly Terry’s Notes.

You asked and Breeders’ Cup listened… not only did they address their ticket prices and structure to be more flexible and affordable, they’re now selling their tickets online! That’s the kind of progress this industry needs and we’re thrilled that they chose the Hello Race Fans Ad Network to promote this new initiative! Seeing an organization like the Breeders’ Cup roll out a new online initiative by advertising it in a new online venue is a great sign that progress is possible in horse racing. If you’re planning on going to the Breeders’ Cup, and you know you are, click on over via the banner and get your seats!

We’ve also donated ad space to 501(c)(3)s such as ReRun, Old Friends, Remember Me Rescue, GEVA and Another Chance 4 Horses as we wanted to make it that much easier for someone to find out about these great organizations. We also promote the weekly HANA Pool Party! If you’re associated with a racing 501(c)(3) charity, please contact us at our network site to find out more information about how to get a free ad in our rotation!

If you have a site about thoroughbred or harness racing and you’re interested in running ads, come on over and sign up! And your site doesn’t need to be a blog either. However, if your site is a blog hosted at wordpress.com, you currently can’t run any ads but hopefully wordpress will change that soon.

The other project Swifty and I have been working on is creating a fan education site, also called Hello Race Fans. We think that fans and players can learn as much from each other as they can from experts. I know I’m constantly learning every time I read how someone decided to play a race or by how they interpreted how a race would set up. With this in mind we’ve assembled some great folks, some of whom you already read, to create a site to make it easier for potential new fans to learn about racing. Stay tuned, we plan on having an initial launch prior to the Breeders’ Cup!

Posted by dana on May 27 2009    
Filed Under: Internet, 2009, HANA, West Point Thoroughbreds, Marketing, Breeders' Cup, Ads, Racing

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Macho Again after winning the Jim Dandy (superterrific)

According to Raceday360, Macho Again had a bit of a late night last night, however it sounds low key compared to some of his previous antics. Perhaps his name should be Rowdy Again, or he should swap names with Wanderin’ Boy!

Yours truly has only taken the most cursory of glances at the Travers (and no glances at the other races) but it looks to be a real honest to god horse race… how exciting!

Best of luck to everyone today, and here’s the only hot tip I have to offer this weekend… go to Twitter, sign up (if you’re not already) and follow Raceday360. You can follow by RSS or even get it sent to your phone… Jessica will be dispatching reports all weekend via Twitter (otherwise known as tweets), just like this Macho Again tidbit. If you can be there yourself, why not feel like it?

Posted by dana on Aug 23 2008    
Filed Under: 2008, West Point Thoroughbreds, 3yo, Saratoga, Racing

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In a word, wow. Not that he had the toughest of competition today but I think someone may have slipped a little Winstrol laced Kool-Aid in my “what am I going to do with an hour to post” beer.

And did anyone call Macho Again? I took a quick look around and didn’t see anyone call that one! It looked really good for Racecar Rhapsody but he couldn’t hold off the hard charging Icabad Crane and Macho Again. Too bad too, my strategy involved a series of tri boxes of Big Brown, Racecar Rhapsody and the field. I also had a much more limited series of exactas, that did not include Macho Again.

Back to Big Brown, I was impressed with how well he rated and how effortlessly he took over to ultimately crush the field. That’s one more thing to check of my “prove it to me” list… can he intentionally rate? Check.

The Belmont should provide an opportunity for him to prove the one last thing that I’d like to see (and just in time too!)… how will he handle some real competition? His only competition so far has been his post position in the Derby. Casino Drive should be the first real competition of the equine variety to cross his path. Bring it on!

In other news, besides missing the Preakness trifecta by 3/4, I missed the Dupont Distaff exacta by nose thus concluding a full day cashing no tickets.

Here’s a note of interest in the Bloodhorse article about Big Brown’s retirement plan:

When the colt will be retired is completely controlled by his owners, IEAH Stables and Paul Pompa Jr.

Do you think there’s a clause in the deal that nullifies it if he’s injured? Do you think the money has changed hands or does it change hands when he’s retired? In other words, who assumes the risk? Maybe they both do if there was some payment now with the balance payable upon retirement. If Three Chimneys assumes the risk it will be interesting to see just how sporting IEAH will be about it… clearly they could certainly count on continued purse money!

Well, congrats to Big Brown and Macho Again and West Point Thoroughbreds… now there’s a partnership group I actually like!

Posted by dana on May 17 2008    
Filed Under: West Point Thoroughbreds, 3yo, Drugs, Greed, Prove it to Me, Wrap Up, Pimlico, Preakness, That's Why They Call it Gambling, Breeding, Gambling, Retirement Watch, Triple Crown, Racing

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Yowza, I just turned on the OTB channel to learn that Steve Asmussen & Shaun Bridgmohan won 6 races, including all 4 stakes races, on the Fairgrounds card today… that’s what I call a Jockey Trainer combo!!

I was able to watch race 10, the last race of the day, to see if they could make it 7 and they almost did. West Point’s Cadet Gold wired the field setting pretty fast fractions (:21.58, :45.15, :57.85, 1:11.86) and holding off a game Stonestreet Song (Bridgmohan/Asmussen) by a nose. It was an impressive effort for both colts but Cadet Song was the more impressive of the two as he hung tough and paid $16.

Posted by dana on Dec 22 2007    
Filed Under: Fairgrounds, Steve Asmussen, Shaun Bridgmohan, West Point Thoroughbreds, 2007, 2yo, Racing

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