Turmoil in the markets

Following the House of Representatives failure to pass a bailout plan for our beleaguered banking sector, the market tanked. The dust is still settling, and it may take well into the night for brokers, accountants and wall street paper pushers to close all the transactions on an off the charts high volume day. It looks like the S&P will end up down between 8% and 9%, though. This will be either slightly less than the percentage loss on October 26, 1987, in the days following Black Monday, or possibly a good bit more. Furthermore, if congress does not act quickly, today's drop may be the precursor to a crash akin to 1987.

But what does this all mean to the horse racing fanatic? Clearly, it is time to realign your portfolio. Get out of volatile investments like stocks and bonds. Given recent bank failures, you're deposits may not even be safe. I recommend putting all your money in less risky investments, like thoroughbred race horses.

For the best horse racing writing anywhere, look to the right

No, not to the Genghis Kahn wing of the Republican party, but to the right sidebar. That's where you'll find links to each member blog in the Thoroughbred Bloggers Alliance. Or better yet, check out the TBA rss feed (or this version which also indicates from which blog the content originated) which aggregates all TBA blogs in one place. If there are any that aren't of higher quality than the shoddy drivel you read here, I have not found them.

Racing media must learn to speak more entertainingly and to a younger audience

In a recent missive Steven Crist notes the parallel phenomenons of evaporating print coverage and at the same time the ascension of quality online coverage largely provided by unpaid bloggers. In the best instances this "quality" Crist speaks of means avant-garde, irreverent writing, or more specifically, writing peppered with obscure pop culture references and hilariously opinion laden political commentary.

Engaging content is not strictly the trade of online forum zealots fed up with formulaic mainstream horse racing media. Nor is it merely the purlieu of indie kids sipping lattes while pecking on their Mac Airs in hipster populated coffee shops attempting Colbert Report caliber satire. ESPN's Kenny Mayne isn't beyond a (properly mocking) Miley Cyrus reference. Delightfully unscripted exchanges on HRTV & TVG also regularly yield similar inventive wit. But the home of wily treatises that induce mouse wheel spinning previously known only to readers of The Onion, can be found, usually via the very googlable Thoroughbred Bloggers Alliance .

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MID POST SHAMELESS PLUG
The Saint Louis, Missouri based punk band Dead City Dregs is on tour now. If you're in SoCal go see them at the Knitting Factory in Hollywood Friday night. I saw them in SF and I can personally tout to you that they rock.
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Periodicals such as The Form could do worse than to emulate this approach. And it doesn't mean penning editorials in l33t (old people: google it, or for hippie Firesign Theatre Enthusiasts, trust that it's a 21st century version of op-talk). Stodgy geriatric sods in racing newsrooms may analogize this style to the excessive drum kit usage and inharmonious rants of punk bands. Regardless, Anti-Flag, Dropkick Murphy's (yes their punk!) sell a more concert tix than Crist does racing forms, and he knows this. I think he's on to something.