(drauh)

Who knew my good luck would come on Friday the 13th, when my open letter to the NTRA was not only answered by Alex Waldrop but blogged about by him on the NTRA site!

The comments and dialog on my site have been fantastic and a big thanks to all of those taking part in the dialog, but please go share your thoughts over at NTRA as well. I’m sure one of the reasons Alex made his way over here is that I posted my link over there, so please use their open forum to make sure your voice is heard.

This little moment in (my personal) internet history uncovered something else of interest. My post got a trackback (an automated alert that another blog had linked to my post), from a post entitled Everyone Wins. As it turns out, the blog belongs to SocialSphere, a group of slick “Web 2.0” strategists. It seems as though the NTRA has engaged SocialSphere to “implement a multi-faceted Web 2.0 plan for the “Sport of Kings””.

Really? While I’m not privy to what that multi-faceted plan might be, I am VERY familiar with web 2.0 since I’ve been building sites and web-based applications for major brands since web 1.0 (or even possibly web .05). I’m also overly familiar with consultants and their “multifaceted plan$”. So while Alex is listening, let’s review and discuss!

Success! (?)

By every measure, Straight Up has been a huge success — the right medium at exactly (or a little early) the right time. And the analytics have been staggering — keeping in mind that until about a month ago, the NTRA and the industry had very little social media presence, Alex’s 6 blog posts have been:

* Viewed 32,000 (uniques) times (20,000 more than the former top blogger on the site with a long-time following);

* Linked to from 39 other thoroughbred bloggers, including the New York Times;

* Commented upon by fans and other stakeholders more than 960 times — an average of 160 comments per post.

I’ll give them that Straight up is a success, I think it’s great and a good faith sign that a dialog is open. But the “right medium at exactly (or a little early) the right time”?

Given that the first racing blog was started 4 years ago almost to the day, I would argue that it’s a touch on the late side. I think the average number of comments also speaks to that, particularly if you read the comments, which tend toward “constructive criticism”. I would categorize it more as “it’s about time”.

And let’s not forget that the at it’s launch, Straight Up didn’t even display the comments it collected… that’s not very web 2.0!

Highlighting this passage: “until about a month ago, the NTRA and the industry had very little social media presence”. It’s true. I’m not sure how many of you noticed, but the NTRA has been quietly rolling out little bits of web 2.0-ness. There’s the Facebook Page, the MySpace page, the YouTube page, Wallpaper (which is very web 1.0, not that it shouldn’t be included in a strategy) and the widgets.

From what I can tell, the Facebook page is pretty much just a placeholder to tout the Triple Crown. They’ve created events for the prep races and TC races themselves, they’ve added some photos from the TC and a few videos. Not hideous, but not exactly scintillating web 2.0 strategy at work, particularly the kind one overpays consultants for.

The page currently has 377 fans (I’m one of them). Given that one of the reasons one uses Facebook in a strategy is that it has insane traffic and is a “medium discovery” (checking out what your contacts like and visa versa), the number of fans seems to represent a lack of strategy other than merely having a Facebook presence given that the Kentucky Derby Group at it’s height had over 1,300 members.

The widgets to date are comprised of souped up RSS feeds shrouded in a shiny web 2.0 wrapper. Again, not hideous, but definitely not something one overpays for, particularly when the tool used to create said widgets is accessible to everyone. Simply pick the site you want to create a widget for, put the url in and in a few clicks you have the widget.

Any of us could have made those widgets (like the one I had for Bloodhorse Triple Crown Madness headlines). I actually encourage you to use WidgetBox for all your widget needs, it’s incredibly easy to use and is definitely a way to both enhance your content and keep people coming back to your site.

My fellow TBA colleague, and hella web savvy “flagship blogger”* Jessica Chapel summed it up exactly right in an email exchange on the subject:

The NTRA launches Waldrop’s blog, starts a Facebook page, builds some widgets, and then — what? The fundamentals remain the same, all that’s changed is they now have a glossy, reflective Web 2.0 sheen.

Exactly. Again, I’m not privy to SocialSphere’s “plan”, but as someone who spends a lot of time thinking about all the issues at hand AND happens to know the “sport of kings”, I’m happy to dispense some free advice while Alex & company presumably are listening.

Fellow TBA-er Patrick has been a tireless proponent of standings. In fact, he’s even taken it upon himself to create standings for the TBA that we all carry on our respective blogs. He explains the standings themselves and why we need them here.

As I mentioned in my comment back to Alex, casual fans don’t understand our seasons. Making it clear that 1) we have divisions 2) who’s doing well in the those divisions and 3) that the divisions all correlate to championship races at the end of the year would help enable casual fans to hook in to our sport much more easily.

Currently on the upper right hand corner of the NTRA homepage there is what could almost be categorized as widget that displays the Top 10 Horses, Jockeys, Trainers and Owners. How are the Top 10 determined? By EARNINGS! Fans only marginally care about earnings, if it at all. How many graded races has the horse won, what’s their percentage of wins, percentage on in the money? Create some standings FOR FANS!

We all love Curlin. And some of us even love Big Brown! But these aren’t the only horses we all love. The casual fan relies on marketing and hype to find their next love object. This is not endemic to horse racing, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do better. Instead of pouring all of our hype eggs into one basket, we should spread the love a little bit.

This is where a well crafted widget strategy can come into play. The NBA in particular does a good job of this. They have widgets for everything… standings, playoffs, videos, teams etc.

The NTRA should have widgets for each division that display standings, RSS news feeds (per horse), and video replays of the week’s races in that division. Also, horses should have their own widgets. Say the top 5-10 in each division. The horse widgets could have their record, next target race, work outs, race replays, RSS news feeds and links to their bio pages at NTRA. I know I would have several on my site!

With this kind of strategy fans can put the widgets on their Facebook and MySpace pages which engages the medium of discover angle. Fans could also put them on their NetVibes, My Yahoo, and iGoogle pages which engages a “giving people the information they want, when they want it and where they want it” strategy. Note: please make sure to make the horse and standing widgets no wider than 160 pixels so they can easily be displayed on blogs!

If it were up to me, I would get no more than 6 smart people in front of a big white board, map out the racing year and look for areas where marketing synergy can be leveraged (ew, I just sounded like a consultant!). Looking at the whole year end to end to catch things like Stephen Foster weekend coming on the heels of the Triple Crown.

Once you identify the various events and their timing, do two things… 1) create a plan to market the events through your social media platforms (Facebook, MySpace, etc) and your widgets which are pushing content out to fans and potential fans a like, in places you don’t even know about and wouldn’t even think of and 2) work with ESPN to get that event synergy in place in advance!

Web 2.0 “strategies” should be more than the sum of their parts. This is just what I came up with this morning and afternoon. No one had to fly anywhere, labor over any powerpoint decks, listen to any presentations or most importantly overpay any Millennial-laden slicksters.

In fairness, the NTRA would not be unique in needing to overpay slickly packaged boutique firms for common sense strategies, but as Jessica pointed out in the aforementioned email chain, that shouldn’t preclude tapping web savvy people who KNOW the industry for insight on how to use design and technology as a part of a meaningful strategy to create and retain fans.

Of course, it would be helpful to keep our “product” around long enough to market in a meaningful way. As you can imagine, I’ll have more to say about that as well!

* I can’t take credit for the term “flagship blogger”, hats off to Brooklyn Backstretch for that excellent turn of phrase.

Curlin romps in the Stephen Foster for his 5th straight win (Sarah K. Andrew)

Congrats and thank you to Curlin & co for another sublime performance!

More soon.

Pyro that is! He just cruised to a gorgeous victory in the Norther Dancer, winning handily over My Pal Charlie in second and Visionaire in 3rd. Had I been able to wager I would have had the exacta, which only payed $35.20, but that’s not the point, plus I would have wagered more than $2.

I’m surprised by Recapturetheglory, I would have imagined him to be in the mix up front, but not today.

At any rate, I’m really glad to see Pyro back on form!

And needless to say, go CURLIN!

I had fully intended to play the Stephen Foster card at Churchill today. I assumed I would be able to do so by using Twinspires. Not the case. I then moved on to my YouBet account. Again, no luck.

Truth be told it’s probably for the best, I haven’t exactly been on fire at the windows. The good news is that I can watch the card using the pretty snazzy beta of Twinspires TV (I wish their race replays used the same interface, which would make them larger and easier to see). The other bit of good luck is that I’ll be able to watch the Stephen Foster on the aforementioned Channel 71 as the race day will be over at Belmont.

Naturally I didn’t discover this until I had gotten pretty far into my handicapping. I was uninspired by the 6th (Hysterical Lady just crushed) but here are my thoughts on the Regret and Northern Dancer.

In the Regret I’m not convinced by Pure Clan as the favorite. CJ’s Leelee, Zee Zee and Magical Theater is where I would be looking and given the current odds I might focus on Magical Theater.

As for the Northern Dancer, we all know I love Pyro and the pace looks to be right up his alley. I’m bummed that Tiz Now Tiz Then scratched as I think he might have helped to tire out Recapturetheglory. That being said, if I had access to some wagering I would probably take a shot with Pyro over Unbridled Vicar. Unbridled Vicar had a nice confidence builder last out and can close off a slow pace. I’m not convinced Visionaire and Texas Wildcatter will like the pace.

Ok, they’re loading in the gate for the Regret. Good luck to all!

Update: my inability to access wagering is already working out for the best as Pure Clan just won the Regret! CJ’s Lee Lee and Zee Zee placed and showed respectively.

I was just lounging around watching channel 71 (which looks safe for now) and in the 4th at Belmont #6 Count This Senora threw her jock, J Berrios Cruz right out of the gate.

She went on to run a really game, REALLY wide run to “place” to Classy Concern by nose. No report on how the jock is doing as of yet but hopefully he’s not seriously injured.

Speaking of wide runs, I happened upon this race this morning by way of Charles’ flickr stream. Although this wide runner managed to keep the rider in tact.

Dear NTRA,

I was chatting with a few friends this morning and there’s something we’d like to share. We thought that it would be of particular interest to you as one of your mission statements is to “Leverage television assets and yearlong promotional programs with ESPN to promote big event days and create stars”

This Saturday Churchill has a fantastic card headlined by Curlin, our reining horse of the year, in the Stephen Foster. Not only is Curlin undefeated in 4 starts, has won 9 out 12 starts, and never been out of the money. Most importantly he’s the horse racing equivalent of a big foot sighting as a horse with a successful 3yo campaign returning for a 4yo campaign. I’m sure you know all this.

What I’m writing to tell you is that this was a GREAT and TIMELY opportunity to build on the skyrocketing viewership of the Belmont just last weekend by marketing and televising this card on ESPN or ESPN2. Few got what they wanted out of the Belmont, which leaves a wide gaping whole of yearning for a kick ass horse race to be filled. The Stephen Foster provides just such an opportunity.

And think of the excellent story that Curlin makes on the heals of Big Brown. He was last year’s Big Brown, going into the Derby undefeated with only 3 starts. While his path didn’t take the same trajectory as Big Brown’s, look at him now, poised to potentially sweep in to the international scene and prove that America can produce great horses that can race and win in drug free circumstances abroad. It’s a story of redemption all the way around, and one that could let casual fans know that Big Brown is still a good horse with a shot to come back later in the year for his shot at redemption.

How many people thought Curlin’s spirit could have been broken after his gut wrenching performance in last year’s Belmont at the end of a grueling Triple Crown season where he had NO 2yo foundation? Then to have him return in the Haskell to turn in a mediocre performance, leading us all to believe that perhaps we only got a brief glimpse of what could have been.

But then came the Jockey Club Gold Cup… where he ran down the Lawyer Ron, who was looking like the horse of the year, in a thrilling stretch battle that sent the memo, “don’t count me out yet, I’m just getting my game back”!

This performance led to his current string of impressive, indomitable wins in the BC Classic, Jaguar Trophy Handicap and Dubai World Cup. HE’s our horse, and we should be marketing him as such.

Certainly there are other great story lines to be had as well. As some of my friends pointed out, like building a Curlin/Einstein rivalry as it seems likely they will meet again in the Arlington Millions as Curlin will need a grass prep for the Arc. This could also play out as an Asmussen/Pitts rivalry.

The bottom line is that this was a very timely missed opportunity to help us build that new era.

Your friend,

Dana Byerly

P.S., another friend wants you to know about another opportunity before it’s too late.

Curlin and Pancho survey the land at Churchill (JerryLewis)

Since we’re fortunate enough to have Curlin running in the US weekend, I thought I’d take a moment to help us all transition from the long and tiring Triple Crown by way of a Curlin palate cleanser, if you will.

Curlin is set to break from the first post position in the Stephen Foster this weekend, despite his weight assignment. The entire card is action packed so it looks like I won’t get that handicapping break I was thinking of taking!

Fellow TBA-er Superfecta nominates Curlin as our ambassador as he prepares to gallivant around the globe. I agree! She also points out that he has a foundation, which is a part of his site, which has a section about Pancho! (below the human caregivers, which are also nice to see).

Who? Curlin’s stable pony! You may remember that Bloodhorse’s Morning Line Goes to Dubai blog had a post on him as he accompanied Curlin to Dubai.

Scott Blasi, assistant trainer for Curlin was quoted as saying:

You can tell Curlin relaxes when Pancho is by his side. Curlin is so big, but Pancho doesnt get intimidated. Hes even bigger than Curlin and hes so seasonedhes been everywhere with the stable.

And back at the Go Curlin site, the following post World Cup heartwarming scene was described:

After being festooned with a bright red fringed cooler proclaiming him the winner of the worlds richest race, Curlin made his way out of the crowded enclosure, the intensity of the race still vividly on his face. Yet when he saw Pancho, his ears shot up, and the pair walked out together, sharing in a small way this win that they both had worked so hard to achieve.

I was first alerted to Pancho by Swifty, who, on one of our many phone calls, told me to search Pancho in the Facebook groups (without telling me what that meant)… I quickly found out. Curlin also has a fan page on Facebook.

Here are some highlights to get you in mood for Curlin this weekend (sans last year’s Triple Crown, we want to stay focused on moving forward). And just remember, after all is said and done, he gets to come home to Pancho afterwards! We should all be so lucky!

Jockey Club Gold Cup – the performance that answered any remaining questions I had about Curlin

Breeders’ Cup Classic – “an absolutely stylish performance”

RIP George Washington

Jaguar Trophy – his warm up for the Dubai World Cup

Dubai World Cup – stunning

(Note: I felt bad for my beloved Premium Tap and I’m sure that’s the last time we’ll lay eyes on him)

I hope you’re now feeling prepared for the next course, I know I am!

The Belmont Stakes trophy awaiting it’s recipient (Jason Moran)

Fellow TBA-er Frank had a post last week on patience that I really liked and had wanted to reference but had become too scattered (perhaps there’s a follow up post to be had about lack of attention span?).

The post talks about the lightly raced nature of this years TC horses in general but really speaks to the grind of the TC and the general lack of patience in bringing horses along.

I was so jazzed about last year’s prep season all the way through to the Belmont, but this year I can’t say the same. I still really like Pyro and am hoping to see him regroup, but this year was just so full of odd twists and turns of the not so great/total let down variety that I’m starting to the think that, like fellow TBA-er Teresa, that I might also be a little disenchanted with the grind of the Triple Crown. (note, she’s more disinterested than disenchanted).

Historically (read that with irony, I’ve followed exactly 2 seasons) I haven’t done so well on Derby prep/TC races with the exception of last year’s Derby and this year’s Wood. I really enjoy following spring/summer and fall at Belmont and, of course, Saratoga much more. At the very least, I FEEL like I’m in a position to make better calls because there’s more of an element of stability in following a local track.

But, I’m sure I won’t be able to resist the siren song of the trail next year, so would someone please tattoo the sentiments in this excellent piece by Steve Davidowitz on my forehead (backwards, so I can read it in the mirror). [DRF+ – requires subscription]

If we step back to objectively examine details that were staring us in the face, we just might learn valuable handicapping lessons. Lessons that I thought I had learned many years ago.

That sentiment does make me feel a bit a better… while it obviously takes patience to prevail, periodic introspection can’t hurt either.

Pays to Dream on the outside lives up to his name (Bud Morton)

They’re retired with an injury!

Pays to Dream, the long shot that came on to surprise in the Dixie and then ran a game third in the Manhattan was retired with a fracture. Ugh is all I can say to that, and of course, get well soon!

Here’s his eye popping run in the Dixie on the Preakness Card:

And his game effort in the Manhattan:

The long sandy stretch at Belmont (~ RAYMOND)

In honor of the continued Triple Crown traffic surge, I thought I would direct you to some actual content (as I take my customary Monday night Law & Order rerun pass on posting).

Filed under “kick ’em while their down” or “you’re probably glad someone else said it”, a compilation of interesting points and “I told you so”s, an excellent witty retort, a scatological international point of view and a pithy poke.

Filed under “who couldn’t look at photos for hours”, a rather big gallery of the day, GbG regulars Raymond, Charles, Jason, Bud and Sarah.

And closer to home, the most commented on post yet and did anyone get my Tale of ETAKI joke? I know, not so funny… I mean it wasn’t even really a joke.

And in other classy news, let the finger pointing begin!