Gathering the wind

Asked and answered

2010-07-12T07:00:00.002-05:00

Opinions are great and when expressed with gravitas and consideration are worthy of attention. Facts, however, tend to get lost in the pablum of the loudest denominator.

The disparate organizations, with their panjandrums ensnared in a melee of nugatory and capricious behavior, spend more time bickering over the naming order of coalitions, than on substantive issues.

Few are willing to sit down and discuss facts. There is nowhere to go for real answers and the dross of vituperation, passing itself for dialog, discourages the genuine parties.

StackOverflow was created to serve as the ultimate Q&A repository for computer programming matters. Real, interesting, relevant questions are posed on the site and then answered.

The answers are voted on according to several metrics, one of which is the degree to which it addresses the question and provides a solution. Visitors can vote on the answers provided, ranking them as it were, with the higher ranked answers moving to the top of the list and being the most visible.

No longer does one have to wade through an endless bulletin board of flames and misspellings, to find the answer to some question posed 5 years ago. If the question exists, the best answer is the first one listed, no matter when it was provided.

Open ended questions or questions seeking opinion are tagged as off-topic and wasteful. The site participants gain reputation points based on community voting on whether their answers are relevant.

If somebody just keeps posting crap or opinion, their reputation suffers and their future postings are treated with discretion.

The site concerns itself with facts.

StackOverflow has taken this concept of community and knowledge repository and expanded their offering to myriad and sundry topics through their StackExchange site. They agree to host, through a creative commons agreement, any site on any topic. They provide the real estate, the users provide the community.

In the beta phase, anybody can suggest a site for development. If enough support is generated through participation, and the site reaches a critical mass, StackExchange will take the site live for universal participation.

The beta phase involves creating the format for the site, generating the interest through commitment from users and developing the format of the questions that will be permitted as well as those considered off topic.

I started a proposal.

Check out their FAQ. See if it interests you. If you think this could be something worthwhile, sign up to help create the format. Tell your friends. Get Baffert and Lukas. Davis and Stronach. Zayat and Moss.

Want an answer to acceptable parts per million in an after race drug sample? Maybe somebody from the testing board can answer that for you. The stewards knocked you out of the Pick 4 at Hollywood? Perhaps they could deign to step up to the proverbial mike.

For the site to make it out of alpha, it requires 60 users and 10 sample questions(both good and bad). Everything gets a vote. The format develops organically.

It is a meritocracy. A place for facts.

In a game that lacks transparency, change has to start somewhere.

Two words

2010-05-18T16:05:00.002-05:00

Mullins sues the CHRB for violating his rights to due process.

"Such a lengthy suspension would be catastrophic to Mr. Mulins' career as a professional horse trainer."

I wonder if the lawyer felt as stupid writing that statement as he sounds when I read it. I can't imagine the term professional should be used in any context when it comes to Mullins.

Two words for you, Jeff.

Fuck you.

The hits just keep on coming

2010-04-22T11:25:00.000-05:00

For those of you who haven't noticed, I have been absent from teh interwebs. Sorry. Life, you know.

I imagine, somehow, most of you managed just fine without my insipid aperçus.

This hiatus will continue for the foreseeable future while I wrestle with fixed point theory and lambda calculus.

Given the sense of duty your humble scribe feels towards you, dear reader, I tear myself away from precious moments of study to bring you this development, from the the folks who made free stats a commodity.

By the bye. Is NTRA.TV adrift somewhere in a brainstorm session or is that just too radical to conceive?

On Entscheidungsproblem and recursion

2010-04-08T12:37:00.001-05:00

Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.
-Albert Einstein

Before turning to those moral and mental aspects of the matter which present the greatest difficulties, let the inquirer begin by mastering more elementary problems.
-Sherlock Holmes in A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Except for simple problems, solutions consist of several pieces working together.

When writing code, the problem must be understood before the algorithm can be designed. Every decision should be designed before the code is written. This includes all parameters and aspects in which the solutions will apply and how they relate to each other once written.

Once understood the easy mistake is to write the whole code in one shot. The better, and in the long run, more effective manner, is to break each component down into individual parts and work on specific solutions independently.

You start with the original problem (Level 0) and figure out how can this be broken down into several subproblems (Level 1). Odds are, these individual Level 1 problems can break down into Level 2 and each Level 2 into Level 3 and so on. The trick lies in determining whether to break down each higher Level problem or continue with this algorithmic bifurcation to the lowest level (highest cardinal) component.

A rule of thumb says to pick the problem whose subdivision is obvious and continue in this fashion until the solution to each subproblem is so clear that it can be designed directly. By identifying the obvious problems, one is able to solve tasks that are relatively easy and the solution to other more complicated tasks becomes easier to discern. These more complex tasks, if approached in the same manner, prove easier to solve and one is able to complete the entire design without encountering any individual task that proves daunting.

The mistake, again, is to try to solve the entire problem all at once. Top down design works because it creates solutions for simple problems.

Building a solution from several pieces is simplified when approached individually. The first version of a solution is a working program with a single feature that is free of bugs. The program is saved and work continues on the next, easy to deliver, feature. That is saved and you work on the next. A working program with fewer features is always better than a nonworking program with everything under the sun.

David Allen, in his book Getting Things Done, advocates a similar approach to the execution of ones daily shuffle off this mortal coil. Pick a task, event, project, merger, acquisition...whatever, and break it down until you reach the point where you can complete one item on that list in under two minutes.

If I have to get my car fixed, that event is the end result of a series of individual tasks. I don't "get my car fixed"

I have to:

Find the number of a mechanic
Call the mechanic-or several
Schedule an appointment
Keep the appointment

Each of those tasks, in aggregate, results in my car "getting fixed". But if I had just said, 'Man, I need to get my car fixed, what a pain in the ass...screw it, I'll do it later.' Nothing would ever get done-and this is a relatively simple process.

Putting together a functioning, secure tote system or national regulating body of racing rules, could prove more challenging. Only if looked at as a whole.

At their core, projects are a series of deliverables accomplished by people by a certain time.

As Charles Emerson Winchester said, 'I do one thing, I do it very well, and then I move on'.

Buying time

2010-04-07T15:09:00.003-05:00

On this week's Slate Culture Gabfest, the gang discusses a recent venture where they created a nondescript, bizarre montage of apocalyptic images, with insects, gas masks and mushroom clouds, topped with ominous narration and paranoid instructions to an equally nondescript website: vcantellyouwhy.com.

There was no product or meaningful message.

The commercial aired late night, during reruns of the Glen Beck Show.

Based on tracking information and the 1000 people who typed in the URL, those rapscallions at Slate, determined their little ad reached 1.3 million people.

Total cost: $1,300.

This made possible by the good people at Google and their TVads feature. This will allow anyone capable of using a camcorder and uploading video, to create TV advertising and have it broadcast nationally. One can bypass the marketing and network middleman and just buy time.

Thirteen hundred bucks to reach 1.3 million people. Waldrop has to have that in the petty cash drawer.

Learning from Alderaan

2010-04-03T09:47:00.002-05:00

'I felt a great disturbance in the mutuels, as if millions of horseplayers cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.'
-Unknown

Clay Shirky discusses the collapse of complex business models in a recent post. The argument centers on the inability of complex structures to simplify their operations due to process and dogma.

Some excerpts:

When the value of complexity turns negative, a society plagued by an inability to react remains as complex as ever, right up to the moment where it becomes suddenly and dramatically simpler, which is to say right up to the moment of collapse. Collapse is simply the last remaining method of simplification.

In such systems, there is no way to make things a little bit simpler – the whole edifice becomes a huge, interlocking system not readily amenable to change...Furthermore, even when moderate adjustments could be made, they tend to be resisted, because any simplification discomfits elites.

When ecosystems change and inflexible institutions collapse, their members disperse, abandoning old beliefs, trying new things, making their living in different ways than they used to. It’s easy to see the ways in which collapse to simplicity wrecks the glories of old. But there is one compensating advantage for the people who escape the old system: when the ecosystem stops rewarding complexity, it is the people who figure out how to work simply in the present, rather than the people who mastered the complexities of the past, who get to say what happens in the future.

We may have passed the point of no return but ridding ourselves of the old ways might make this game better...thirty years from now.

Free stats...Not In My Back Yard!!!!

2010-04-02T09:14:00.003-05:00

NBA has a free iPad app for stats. I imagine MLB and NFL have something similar.

How stupid they must feel compared to DRF and Equibase. After all, how can you make any money or build a fan base with free?

We fear change

2010-04-02T07:05:00.003-05:00

The locus of my inertia disintegrates after the first five letters of the word. I don't do well in dynamic environments and I require predictability in order to feel comfortable. If asked to deal with change, I assume the fetal position.

So I recognize the intersection of confusion we find ourselves facing, on this side of the pond, as it pertains to the synthetic question.

All else being equal, are synthetic surfaces inherently safer? I have no idea.

Statistics, such as they are, seem to indicate so but statistics can mean whatever you want them to mean. Smart people on both sides of the argument make valid claims and I fall on the side of any well maintained surface possessing the requisite level of safety.

I don't know enough about the facts to speak cogently on the subject but I imagine an underlying truth exists. I think the culprit lies in the spastic and discombobulated manner in which the game has approached the game in general and the synthetic question in particular.

A more reactionary and fear stimulated response, I cannot imagine. Some tracks have synth, others don't. The synthetic tracks vary as well; no standard exists. What is the point? Where does it all tie in?

There is no narrative. Nobody is directing traffic.

This year the US showed poorly in Dubai and with the BC two years ago, players and breeders sense a shift in the wind. The Crist v Kling debate misses the point.

This game relies on the bettor for funding, by choice. The game has done an amazing job at making itself a black hole for casual fans and without them, you don't get advertisers.

So if it wants to rely on the bettor for its cash it has to cater to the bettor. Provide them with value and consistency of product. Give them a reason to keep churning. Swapping surfaces and regulations like Tiger swaps companions, is as stupid as Tiger is an unconscionable cur.

Pick a direction and go with it. Have the courage of your convictions.

Murder the unchosen idea.

The parties are too busy looking out for themselves, throwing whatever at the wall, in some desperate attempt to find the proverbial silver bullet. They refuse to take a step back and look around, then wonder why everything is going to shit.

Apparently, handicappers in the US don't like synthetics because they are new and remove the historic predictability of dirt surfaces. California was speed favoring, the rail at Aqueduct in winter...

Handicappers can't get a handle on the synthetic question because there is no system to its implementation, handicappers don't have a baseline yet to figure it all out.

Santa Anita is on its, what, third synthetic surface?

The KD trail snakes around SA, TP, OP, Aqu, GP, Haw, Kee and FG. The three synth tracks in there have different surfaces, I think, so different techniques apply and horses bounce from one to the other.

The system is new and non-standard. That does not lead to good things.

Breeders, I imagine, won't appreciate the change because the horse we have in the game today doesn't stack up to the proposed change in direction. Drugs and speed madness have arguably weakened the breed here and shifting to synthetics carries with it a change in breeding focus.

Trainers have their own problems with the surfaces and bring their own baggage and rigidity to the issue. Most still look at scientific approaches to training much like the Church looked at Galileo.

The BC is discussing having SA as the permanent host site. If the track stays synthetic what will that do to the breeding industry it purports to showcase? What will dirt tracks do? Have their own championship event? Will there be an alternate championship?

Do we end up with two leagues, like the NFL 40+ years ago? The East v. West as it was 50 years ago in this sport, where California horses were considered inferior.

Perhaps this will involve a change in thinking. A change in training.

Everybody targets the KD and all else be damned. Maybe if the game provided incentive for horses to stick around past their three year old season, there would not be such a mad dash to get a horse to the KD and ruin it in the process.

What if an incentive existed for a horse that won the KD, BC Unisex Classic and the Dubai World Cup? It wouldn't have to happen in order either; just ever. Make it a ridiculous amount too. (Dr. Evil voice...$30 million dollars) Insure against the loss. Maybe the KD winner would stick around a few years. Make it $50 million if the horse wins the Triple crown along the way.

It will never happen. Because change is bad.

"'Beyond the Wild Wood comes the Wide World,' said the Rat. 'And that's something that doesn't matter, either to you or me. I've never been there, and I'm never going, nor you either, if you've got any sense at all.'"
- Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

I got your tweet right here

2010-04-01T07:42:00.003-05:00

I think there is a race in Kentucky, on the first Saturday in May, that might do a little better.

Of course, I think they could do it gratis.

Playing chess with myself

2010-03-29T11:00:00.001-05:00

Is not a euphemism for anything lurid, although Bishop to any "G" spot always make me chuckle. I don't play chess with myself because I am not smart enough to throw myself a head fake.

An article on Bloodhorse.com posits Pletcher could have eight starters in this year's KD. Eight starters! If the man had half the field, I would still make it better than even money against him winning it.

It's easy to make fun of his lack of success in the KD, the man doesn't have to prove himself to anyone as a trainer-Dan Marino never won a Super Bowl and he would be on the top of my list, a dirty nose separating him from Montana-but at what point does the marginal utility of having him as trainer start to work against one as an owner?

From what I gather, the man is a perfectionist. That level of dedication to his craft is commendable and to be emulated but it cannot be maintained in the weeks, days, hours and minutes leading up to the race. If he saddles eight, or six or five, that is time he is not devoting to his other charges.

For a race such as the KD and all it promises, one cannot afford to overlook anything. Who knows the difference between winning and losing? A girth too tight or too loose? A stray grain of sand, perhaps, under the saddle cloth rubbing the horse the wrong way and making him lose interest before the windows close?

Horse fitness is not a zero sum game. Horses are not chess pieces and in theory he could win the eight horse blanket photo but life never does seem to work out that way.

I don't imagine he cares what the press writes about his "0"fer, he probably sleeps well at night and if nothing else, one has to admire his Sisyphean resolve. I also imagine he wants to win this race, badly, but it probably doesn't haunt him-yet.

Insiders know things, better left unsaid for public consumption. He knows what horses are legitimate and what horses are running for ego. Owners have egos and I imagine Pletcher is adept at navigating the Scylla and Charybdis of narcissism and pettiness his job engenders. Even then, strange things happen in a horse race. I guess that's why they created an institution around the event.

He will have them all as fit as he can make them and roll the dice. But there is a moment, after the dice are cast and before they land where a stray breath or random shaft of light can affect the outcome of the roll.

This supernal tightrope is where he pays his bills and why owners are willing to let him give them a run for their money.

How attenuated do they want him to be?

Yes, but...

2010-03-23T07:45:00.000-05:00

Nokia started out as a paper mill company. They expanded into electricity generation and merged with a rubber galoshes manufacturer.

The obvious infrastructure for a multinational telecommunications company.

I imagine, at multiple junctures in their corporate history, someone had a pretty good reason for not doing something different. They probably had SWOT analysis and market research indicating the problems associated with expansion or alternate thinking.

Racing has plenty of reasons for not changing anything.

All parties remain entrenched in the way things have always been done and people just don't change the way they drive home from work. It's just not done.

Seth Godin, in a recent post, vents at 'everyone'. Everyone that says things are they way they are and they cannot change. Everyone in racing is what is wrong with the game.

Flowing Data links to a few sites willing to search for data, for a fee. Seems like a good opportunity for someone to pay for a search of all PP's for all horses running in the last few years and start an open source site for race horse PP's.

A mechanism must exist for making PP's free. Once the database is generated, the trick rests in maintaining it. Google must have a thing in Beta where they can generate running lines with a laser pointer or something. A camera with points of call Google mapped into it and a stopwatch. I mean the solution can't be all that hard.

I think the control of PP's is why racing is so resistant to embedding horses with those RFID tags. It would then just be too easy to make your own running lines and compete with Equibase.

I also think the guy who feeds the Loch Ness monster had Kennedy taken out and kidnapped the Lindbergh baby.

Reasons abound for not doing anything. It proves easy to say no. Everyone has reasons.

Not everyone wrote King Lear. Not everyone gets to pilot the VSS Enterprise.

Fees bleg

2010-03-21T09:11:00.002-05:00

Is the percentage of purse monies, paid to jockeys, negotiable or mandated?

Could a jockey charge less?

If it is mandated, could the authority set a lower fee for claiming races? Or any race for that matter?

If jockeys can charge what they want, they could compete on price and maybe the unknown jockeys could get a few more mounts out of the deal. Owners would, I imagine, take the offer from a jockey who can ride.

Elite jockeys would be in demand in the bigger races, where the marginal utility of their services would provide greater return.

I don't know of any studies and I imagine the competitive nature of jockeys skews this theory but would not the opportunity costs of riding in a low level claimer outweigh the potential return from any race. I think Jerry Bailey understood this concept.

If unknown jockeys can charge whatever they want, "elite" jockeys would probably reconsider riding that claimer for the same amount, focusing their attention on the higher purse races.

In theory.

Form Monkey

2010-03-19T21:00:00.002-05:00

This is my tribute to Jonathan Coulton's epic, Code Monkey. (The song is released under Creative Commons license and I take it to mean I can steal and alter at will.) A version of the song is at bottom for you to sing along...

My apologies to the man.

Form Monkey wake up get coffee.
Form Monkey bankroll fine.
Form Monkey checks the late scratches and the morning line.
SA canceled due to rain again.
Turf off, game stink.
'Capping not functional or elegant,
What do Form Monkey think?
Form Monkey think maybe takeout too high he play goddam slots instead.
Form Monkey sick of shout it out loud.
Racing execs stupid and proud.

Form Monkey like supers.
Form Monkey like tri and pick six too.
Form Monkey very simple man,
with big, warm, fuzzy secret heart.
Chantal likes you. Chantal likes you.

Form Monkey hang around at off track.
Think sports book nice.
Form Monkey like the four at Monmouth
but he can't get his price.
He say no thank you to the track cause,
entry cost big hit.
Anyway toilets on overflow,
Nowhere to shit.

Form Monkey have long walk back from window,
stewards take down mortal lock.
Form Monkey not thinking so straight,
Form Monkey not feeling so great.

Form Monkey like supers.
Form Monkey like tri and pick six too.
Form Monkey very simple man,
with big, warm, fuzzy secret heart.
Chantal likes you. Chantal likes you a lot.

Form Monkey have every reason
to get out this place.
Form Monkey just keep on punting.
Make it up last race.
Much rather go home have a beer.
Take bath, take nap.
N-2-L standing for fifty-k,
such a load of crap.
Form Monkey think someday he have decent pools even off-time odds be true.
Form Monkey just waiting for now.
Form Monkey say someday, somehow.

Form Monkey like supers.
Form Monkey like tri and pick six too.
Form Monkey very simple man,
with big, warm, fuzzy secret heart.
Chantal likes you. Chantal likes you.

That's what you get for waking up in charge

2010-03-19T16:15:00.003-05:00

Alex Waldrop posted his latest statement regarding last week's NTRA Live! fiasco. A few excerpts:

'The end result was a disappointment to many'...Please identify those individuals who were satisfied with the end result.

'I was not a pleasant person to be around at 6pm last Saturday -- and for most of the three days thereafter, for that matter. Like many of you, I was disappointed that I didn't get to see the races like I was promised, but what made matters infinitely worse was that I felt we had let so many of our most passionate racing fans down'...Anytime someone goes out of their way to tell me how much hell they raised or how they called people to task on my behalf, it makes my ass twitch.

Of course you expressed anger. Of course the result proved unacceptable. Expressing any satisfaction with the product would prove you are the feckless mouthpiece, some, this blog included, purport you to be.

Make the damn thing work. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Or, as the august dilettante, Katy Perry, once said.

Shut up and put your money where your mouth is.

The road not taken

2010-03-16T20:30:00.000-05:00

On occasion, I like to indulge in hypotheticals.

If every trice is a node in the space-time continuum, then infinite branches of singular events are possible. A transcendent butterfly effect, if you will.

What if Zenyatta stayed retired?

There is no Apple Blossom showdown. Rachel Alexandra has no reason to prep in the Ladies Stakes, or, at the very least, Zardana doesn't ship in to keep her honest. Rachel crushes the field and preps as Team Jackson sees fit.

The summer rolls along, the male competition slugs it out in diminishing stakes, since Belmont and Saratoga are decimated. Rachel takes her shots, if they don't just keep her running in restricted company, targeting the BC UniSex-Classic.

Quality Road is cleaning up but he aggravates his quarter crack, which, you know, isn't the most improbable thing and doesn't show up for the big dance.

Shirreffs, having a clue Zardana might be something, keeps her away from Rachel but targets the Classic.

They run the race and, let's just say, dimensions phase and echo in the Kentucky gloaming. Zardana and Rachel finish 1-2. (The Europeans won't be a threat since the race is on dirt. O'Brien will still have half the field, with this year's version of the greatest horse he's ever trained. A truly genuine harse)

Who gets Horse of the Year?

Seek not the favor of the multitude

2010-03-16T07:43:00.004-05:00

Who knew Seth Godin was an avid reader of this dusty, forgotten corner of teh interwebs I call home. An excerpt:

That's where the first trend comes in... the artists, idea merchants and marketers that are having the most success are ignoring those that would rubberneck and drive on, focusing instead on cadres of fans that matter. Fans that will give permission, fans that will return tomorrow, fans that will spread the word to others that can also take action.

It's worth being one of the few who actually read the whole thing.

Science and surplus

2010-03-15T08:30:00.000-05:00

A recent article by Clay Shirky (ht Seth's Blog), discusses the cognitive surplus society pisses away watching TV.

In the article, he writes about a professor in Brazil who started a Wiki page where locals can label exact locations of committed crimes. This community effort allows people to see, at a glance, where the more dangerous neighborhoods are, without having to wait for some bureaucratic process to get the ball rolling. The information is real time and relevant.

Seems like racing could use a similar system to track horse breakdowns at specific tracks and use that information, along with whatever isn't hidden or altered, to determine causal factors.

Getting honest reporting is another matter.

In The Science of Horse Training, Bill Pressey tirelessly fights the battle to bring a little science to the game. He posits a horse that can go a mile in under two minutes, with a heart rate below 200 beats per minute, possesses stakes calibre.

It would be interesting to see what his methods could produce from some legitimate race horses, at any level.

System timed out...

2010-03-14T11:44:00.000-05:00

Epic fail.

A missed opportunity.

The NTRA Live! experiment, while well intentioned and a positive development, signifies the inadequacy of that organization's management capabilities, given the server meltdown.

With an eager audience and one clamoring for an opportunity to view its stars in an open medium, the NTRA underwhelmed in its promise to deliver anything worthy of this game. The shortsighted nature of this organization has become monotonous in its pathos.

I don't blame the IT department-and by department I hope I am not referring to Waldrop's nephew; trying to handle that amount of traffic on a Commodore Vic20 is an Augean task. I understand the NTRA is underfunded and probably short staffed-Alex Waldrop might want to consider cutting his salary to funnel cash to the server acquisition department-but to so disappoint a captive crowd heralds the time for this game to look elsewhere for its promotional wing.

It reminds me of the French revolutionary who looks upon a rushing crowd and says, 'There go my people, I must find out where they are heading, so I can lead them.'

Boolean query: Anyone with a Mac and a dotTv domain could have pulled this operation off with fewer glitches?

What would it take for a small yet dedicated cadre of knowledgeable individuals to form a legitimate marketing/promotional organization, at a fraction of NTRA's operating budget, to give this game the professional face it deserves?

Conan O'Brien is looking for work. He recently Twittered he was going to follow some random person and she went from three to over 20,000 followers!!

He has a captive audience and knows how to marshal it. Why not throw an obscene amount of money at him and have him host a weekly show? Get Randy Moss as the straight man-he can't be happy with the way ESPN is treating the game.

Signal rights and what not might be a challenge but if this past weekend proves anything, it is people want access to the game, will allocate their attention to it and follow it with their cash. Tracks should be champing at the bit to get their product out into the mainstream-don't they teach that in Marketing and Business 101?

This platform could allow tracks and the game at large to cater directly to the customer and provide them with what they want at marginal cost. This study, while probably biased, seems to indicate just that.

Maybe the NTRA will learn from this. Maybe they will beef up their servers or steal a Linksys connection from the local Starbucks. Maybe tracks will realize the potential for growth through cooperation and the free distribution of their signal.

Maybe they will connect on their next opportunity but maybe they don't have too many of those left.

Because if you miss enough of them, that's the ballgame.

Tipping my hat

2010-03-12T09:00:00.000-06:00

I like hats.

As a rule I don't wear them but I like the idea of them; on rare occasions I reserve the right to break my arbitrary, sartorial brocard and wear a tweed Ivy cap.

Love tweed.

I like fedoras too but have never found one that I wear well, plus everyone is wearing that stupid ass hat Jason Mraz wore a while back, so that killed it for me right there.

Anyone interested in hats and horse welfare might want to read this article at Bloodhorse.

The point of this post, however meandering, is not to wax philosophic on the practicality or elegance of a jauntily tipped chapeau but to commend the NTRA for its decision to carry the RA/Zen prep races, on its 'NTRA Live!' site.

Well played, gentlemen. Well played indeed.

Dance with the girl who brung ya

2010-03-12T07:34:00.002-06:00

Is Vic Stauffer the Rodney Dangerfield of racing?

I liked him as an announcer. Hollywood shitcanned his ass. OK, their decision, fair enough. I assume they had their reasons.

Joel Rosario has been tearing it up on the left coast and as a measure of gratitude, decides to fire Stauffer.

I respect the free market and believe every person deserves to get paid exactly what the market will bear but Ebanks had Tyler Baze's book and Rosario pwned his ass.

"I got him at the fall meet of Hollywood in 2008," Stauffer said. "At that time, he was 10th in the standings; he ended up second. The next meet was the main one at Santa Anita, he finished third. The next meet was Hollywood spring; he was leading rider. Then was Del Mar; he was leading rider. Then came Oak Tree. He had a chance to tie for the title in the last race of the meet, and finished second.
"The next meet was Hollywood fall, and he was leading rider. In 2009, he was fifth in North America in purse earnings, and thus far this year, he is third in North America in purse earnings and the leading stakes winner at Santa Anita this meet, second in the standings, and he's missed 11 days."

I have no idea what the politics of agent relationships are out there, or anywhere for that matter, but how much better will Rosario do?

Harefooted and harebrained hypotheses

2010-03-12T06:44:00.004-06:00

JetBlue had itself a little bit of a day, when, on my suggestion, they Twittered they were giving away 1000 tickets to people that showed up at certain locations in NYC.

I really think the tracks should consider marketing themselves to the public. Who knows, people might come...but they would probably need a working toilet.

Would the iPad not lend itself, elegantly, as a platform for ADW wagering? Twinspires and whoever else could make themselves an app and charge, say, $99 as a promotional rate and then a $1 user fee for each wager. Tracks and horsemen could then fight over distribution rights and the FCC could cut off Wi-Fi signals to selected cities. It would be dreamy.

Anyway, just saying.

Kicking the can

2010-03-11T10:55:00.000-06:00

A cursory search on the bloodhorse website, as it pertains to wagering reform:

I'm sure this time, it's different.

Homework is done early

2010-03-10T13:30:00.000-06:00

Apparently, there is this place in the interwebs, called foursquare or fourspace or myfour...foursomething. Anyway, in this place you tweet about where you are and what you are doing and businesses have access to this information and they can tailor offers to you based on location. Targeted advertising, if you will.

As I understand it, one can establish a foothold of some sort and earn the title of mayor or proctologist in chief, based on number of visits or promotions earned or how many other ridiculous people one can convince that the soup you are ordering is worth a dam.

Are racetracks clued in to this phenomenon? They could give away betting vouchers or whatever to whoever manages to bring the most people. Free admission and $10 worth of bets...whatever.

Conan O'Brien did a thing where he picked some random Twitterererer and said he was going to follow this person. I guess she had only three followers at the time and soon ended up with over 15,000. Leo Laporte, on his weekly show TWIT, decided to do something similar and found some unsuspecting woman in New Zealand with only two followers, who had twittered twice and the last one read something like I hate technology. He promised an iPad to her and one person, chosen at random, that decided to follow this woman. Within an hour, she had 2000 followers, at last count, she has over 17,000. All because she hated technology.

To think the NTRA was so close to winning an iPad.

How is that for marketing?

What if XpressBet or HRTV or whoever bought a horse at Keeneland or Calder or Ocala and gave away a 20% share, or the whole damn thing plus one year training costs, to whoever registered the most users or Twittererereres?

Get creative.

Anyway...

In Tesio's Breeding the Racehorse, Edward Spinola, in the introduction, relates the story of how Tesio prepped Nearco for the Grand Prix de Paris run over 3000 metres.

He decided to run him against two other three year olds, over the same distance as the Grand Prix. He chose Ursone, 7 of 9 over the distance and Bistolfi, Italy's best miler.

The plan had Nearco and Ursone breaking together and then hooking up with Bistolfi after seven furlongs. Nearco and Bistolfi carried 119lbs, Ursone 108lbs.

Nearco won handily. Not only did he beat a classy horse at his favorite distance while giving him 11lbs, he trounced a miler, at his distance, while running nearly twice as far.

All that to say this. I watched the team pursuit, speed skating thing, during the Olympics and found it entertaining.

It consists of two teams of three, at opposite ends of the rink, skating whatever the distance is. The fastest team wins but the time stops when your last team member crosses the line, so the team is only as good as the weakest member.

What if racing implemented such an idea? Have three teams-team Moss, Jackson and IEAH, to name just a few-enter three horses each at whatever the distance is. I think the longer distances would lend themselves more readily to the event, and when I say longer distances I am not referring to a mile. Run the race over two miles or even...wait for it...longer.

Make a series out of it with elimination heats and what not. Maybe some sponsorship like a, you know, commercially sustainable product.

Less can be more

2010-03-10T08:00:00.000-06:00

The army has a saying, 'If it's stupid and it works, it's not stupid.'

I mean, if the NORAD commander in War Games was willing to piss on a spark plug to abort an uncommanded nuclear missile launch, how out there does an idea have to be in order to qualify for galactically stupid status?

The recent announcement by NJ, to cut dates and increase purses, has met with what can charitably be characterized as mixed feelings.

I like NJ; the residents are willing to offer advice from where you should go to how you should greet your relatives. NYC dwellers seem to think NJ is a Shangri-La of sorts and act as the unofficial tourism board for the Garden State, since they seem to encourage everybody to go there.

Why I can't make a damn left turn in the state or have SWAT called down on my ass if I try to pump my own gas is beyond me but I refer you to the saying at the top of this post.

Racing is in trouble, across the board. A change needs to happen in the way business is conducted. Ideas are good and hoping Lucy won't snake the football out from underneath us this time is just asinine. Management (and I use that term loosely to describe NTRA, Jockey Club, TOBA et al.) need to own up to the fiasco they have wrought.

Comte said, 'The intellect should be the servant of the heart but not its slave'.

Racing should be the biggest and the best sport out there. It should be in every strip mall and shopping center near you. It should draw crowds to make NASCAR nation look like the campaign committee for Blagojevich/Paterson 2012.

And my "Great American Novel" should, like Athena, spring from my head but it is proving recalcitrant in that regard.

Five-thousand dollar claimers should be the healthiest, soundest, fastest, flea ridden sacks of bones on the plant. Not the most medicated.

At every level, racing should be about the best it has to offer.

Just because you own a horse shouldn't entitle you to run it well past its useful racing life and racing secretaries shouldn't have to beg trainers to enter unprepared horses in a race just to get a field of six to go.

I am not indifferent to the genuine hardship many will face in the reduction that has to happen but if we tried to save everybody that had skin in the game, we would still have buggy whip makers out there.

Open source and 2.0 are not just buzz words. They are the social expectations of the next generation. The generation inheriting this game, who won't tolerate the nostrums handed down by the old guard.

I think this decision by NJ is a watershed moment. I am prepared to be wrong-I have a lot of practice-but the outcome of this next season will shape the landscape of the game. Surrounded by slot states, with a dysfunctional NYRA next door, NJ will be the test group for how a season should be handled.

If horsemen take the 'I'm taking my ball and going home' approach, if they don't make an honest effort to make this NJ racing season a successful one, they will have their pyrrhic victory and can smirk and say 'I told you so.' the whole time they are circling the drain.

If, on the other hand, they defy all expectations and go where the money is; if they realize that competition is good and cream rises; if they allow for the possibility that bettors like full fields of sound, healthy horses; if they put aside outdated beliefs and reach for the better part of the game, then this game will be a sight to see.

I mean a sight to see.

Quick hits

2010-03-09T08:00:00.001-06:00

Offer cash incentives to owners, whose horses compete through the age of five. Scale it to the calibre of horse. Offer bonuses for number of graded races run in a year. Claimers would get little if anything.

TOBA and the AGSC have a threshold, as it pertains to purses, in order for a race to qualify for graded status. What is the problem with adding a medication free requirement? Make it effective in 2012. How hard is that, really? I'm asking.

On Sunday, I watched my first NASCAR race since Earnhardt scraped the paint in turn four, of the last lap at Daytona. I don't care for NASCAR but my father in law had it on, so we watched the last ten laps. Apparently, new to this year, the officials instituted a policy where every attempt is made to finish the race under green.

If the race would finish under caution, a restart is allowed, up to three times, I guess. It is a two lap dash for all the marbles and I have to say, it proved exciting. During one of the restarts, the announcer said something to the effect of 'the fans asked for this and NASCAR responded'. Crazy, that.

In addition and only marginally related, NASCAR allows the drivers to settle things out on the track-this policy, the jockeys at Penn might enjoy.