San Francisco, California
In a Blood-Horse column from February 28, 2006, T.D. Thornton says that "Today's most engaging conversations about racing's most searing issues are all happening online...in loosely structured groups and forums." What sites do you read for alternative content and what forums do you visit for such engaging conversations?
Paulick
I'm a big fan of Equidaily.com for links to non-traditional racing press. I scan blogs and some forums, which often can be useful for news leads. Frankly, the state of horse racing blogs is pretty sad compared to politics or other sports. Some bloggers go weeks without posting a comment (they'd never work at BloodHorse.com!). Bloodhorse.com has dropped forums because of the actions of a few individuals who post irresponsible and damaging comments. We can't justify hiring a 24-hour babysitter to monitor it.
Of course, Equidaily is outstanding and I'm glad Mr. Paulick plugged it. I thought I'd maybe get tipped off to some content and resources I was not aware of, but instead bloggers got the back of his hand.
It's true that most horse racing blogs are not newspaper or magazine quality, but that's why they're blogs. Bloggers do not have copy editors or research teams. I do not anticipate an invitation to write for The Blood-Horse anytime soon based on my medicore language skills displayed in these pages. Still, I feel horse racing bloggers put out valuable, enjoyable content everyday.
As I said many times in these pages, Ray Paulick is a beacon in horse racing journalism that I respect immensely. I'm sorry we bloggers have so disappointed you, Ray.
8 comments:
Your question was selected for the Ray Paulick interview ... your comments are routinely published on Illman's FormBlog ... you were selected to be a guest handicapper on lovedagoat.com ... you are soon to be the famous intervieweeeee on lovedagoat.com. I wish that I could be that articulate and intuitive. I did, however, email the next governor of Texas, Kinky Friedman, what his plans were to fix horse racing in Texas: no reply. (I'm not gonna vote for him!)
Sugar, you're the articulate one. I've used "phagocytosis" and various derivitives of the word at least a half dozen times over the last 2 weeks.
hey ratbastard the goat at del mar on bender send email asap! i lost it again while during this thing called life
Paulick would be wise to note all the unofficial regional racing websites. Barn to Wire represents Illinois tracks, Oceanport Racing Report covers Monmouth, Emerald Racing supports Emerald Downs, California Race Horse is obvious, and of course there's us peons @ oregonracing.com. These unaffiliated websites allow a place for trainers, owners, fans, and others to get together and swap info and news. Because they work as veritable collectives through message boards, they are unbiased (unlike official track websites) and are free to openly discuss hot issues.
And while lovedagoat may not have interviewed you, Sue, I have a feeling if the website could, it would buy you a drink and hit on you. ;)
Brad, you haven't disappointed me, but as I explained to you in an email, the dynamics of horse racing blogs are far short of the political blogs like Wonkette or huffingtonpost or sports blogs that have more energy as a result of revenue and traffic. It's kind of sad to see an interesting post that gets no comments from anyone--something I've seen in several blogs.
My only knock on some of the individual blogs (aside from infrequency of postings) is the tendency by some to make their blogs a "here's who I like" or "here's who I cashed a ticket on" diary. Maybe that turns some people on, but not me. If I want public handicappers I'll buy a newspaper.
Having said that, if someone has some really good trip note info, or intelligence about why a horse ran poorly last out, that's different. That's information.
Anyways, thanks for your email. I hope my comments alleviated some of the insult you felt.
As for Jolene, thanks for the suggestion. I'm aware of some regional sites but not all. If you feel like it, send me some links. My email address is rpaulick@bloodhorse.com
I just woke up to a comment by Mr Paulick and it's like we were all visited by the Godfather last night, how awesome is that. Jolene I'm sorry I hadn't done this earlier, but I've updated to include links for the Regional sites on my blog
I spent a little time going through the TBA blogs the past few days, and I have to say I was wrong in dismissing them as "sad." Just as I said about our own writers in the online chat, some are better than others-- and some are quite good. Some are really entertaining. Love the "Colbert on notice" graphics (but Trevor doesn't deserve to be put on notice).
Glad to hear it! I bet most blogs are even better over the next few weeks after having a fire lit under our ass & this positive reinforcement. We'll become sloppy and complacent again soon enough, though.
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