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!