Put some Duct Tape on it

Time for the annual "lets see how the NTRA screws up this one" event. The NTRA has announced on their website that NTRA Live! returns in April with 3 live Webcasts of the Florida Derby, Wood Memorial and the Blue Grass Stakes.

Always one to toot their own horn, the NTRA Senior VP Keith Chamblin states:

"Last year's NTRA Live! Webcasts were extremely well received..."

Really?- by who? The host, Randy Moss, who returns again this year, did a nice job hosting, but technically the webcasts were a mess, with the debut performance of NTRA Live! in 2010 resulting in a feed seen by virtually no one in what the NTRA termed as "technical errors".

My advice: Log in early ( you must have a NTRA account set up) and plan to have an alternate video feed to watch.

Poll Numbers

In today's edition of USA Today, they published the results of 325 people who were asked: What Sports Commissioner needs to Go?

Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig led all vote getter's with 42% saying he should go, followed by David Stern (NBA) with 20%, Gary Bettman at 14% and NFL's Roger Goodell with 10%. 14% said none-they are all doing a good job.

The Thoroughbred Industry does not have a commissioner but the closest thing we have is Alex Waldrop, the NTRA President and CEO. What do you think the % of Yes votes would be for him needing to go?

Weekend TV Watching Thoughts

Not exactly a great debut for the 3 week 6 race series of Kentucky Derby prep races on USA and NBC Network. This past Saturday announcers Tom Hammond & Gary Stevens, who were hosting the show from the Fairgrounds to cover the Louisiana Derby, had to do an awkward race call when they lost the audio feed of the Lane's End Stakes from Turfway Park. They managed to pick up what appeared to be the simulcast non-HD video feed with no audio. With no audio, someone had to call the race. Gary Stevens started the race call, than kinda handed it to Hammond to take over the call along the backstretch.

Hammond treated it like a Hot Potato as apparently the video feed he was watching was obscured by sun glare. It was obvious both of them were having trouble identifying the leaders around the final turn and it was very late into the final stretch when they finally identified Dean's Kitten as the leader.

On a more positive note the ntra.com webcast of the Sunland Derby went off without a hitch. Wise choice in having Randy Moss host. He is always prepared and had all the background information ready for the viewer on the upset winner Endorsement.

I really liked watching the Dubai World Cup Saturday on my local OTB Simulcast channel. It took a race or two to get used to the camera work. But once I did, I really loved the rail camera that is used at the Medyan racecourse. With this view I really get a better view of the horse movement and jockey decisions in moving the horses, especially down the final stretch. I would love to see this camera used on US tracks.

Crossed my Fingers and it still didn't work

On Friday I wrote these ominous words about the NTRA plan to live webcast the Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta Saturday 2010 debuts on www.ntra.com:

"I also wonder if everyone trying to get on at once around 6 pm on Saturday will slow down the video feed, overload the NTRA servor or freeze people out from logging in.


I will go into Saturday expecting to be underwhelmed by the NTRA webcast, but it is something NTRA should have been doing for a while and hopefully I will come away impressed."

Well, suffice to say, as we all no by now, the ntra website completely crashed and no one could get on the site to watch it. Luckily I was with my better half to be and she has TVG at her house. With the ntra site hopelessly "loading" we turned on TVG and became relegated to the broadcast re-creation of the Rachel and Zenyatta races on the Gate Crashers program.

As described by one wise soul, this is an "Epic Fail."

And how about this corporate speak half-ass apology from Alex Waldrop, CEO of the NTRA wherein he describes the webcast failure as such:

"Technical errors resulted in the Webcast only being viewable for a subset of those who came to our site. We are still investigating exactly what caused our Webcast to fail for so many."

What "subset" is he talking about. Do you know anyone who actually was able to log in and view the damm thing? And by saying "fail for so many"-you really mean "fail for everybody who tried to log on to the site".

This is why the NBC show "The Office" is so funny-because we realize many managers are like the Steve Carell character-they are clueless and inept.

Cross your Fingers

Congrats must go to the NTRA for making the decision to live video stream the 2010 season debuts of Rachel Alexandra in the New Orleans Ladies (6:15 pm Eastern) and Zenyatta in the Santa Margarita (6:45 pm Eastern) this Saturday on the web at www.ntra.com.

I also like that it will be more than just the racetrack feed as they will use Randy Moss of ESPN to host the show.

A few caveats that are not readily apparent when you go to the NTRA website. You must first create an account at the NTRA website at what they call "NTRA Inside Track". One thing I hate about the Internet is all the account sign ups you must go through. The computer can never compare to the simplicity of Television. I feel sorry for the guy who jumps on the computer the last minute to watch this and than finds out he has to create an account first in order to see the race.

I also wonder if everyone trying to get on at once around 6 pm on Saturday will slow down the video feed, overload the NTRA servor or freeze people out from logging in.

I guess most people now are comfortable with watching videos on the computer, but for me, watching stuff on TV, especially sporting events, is much more comfortable and communal in nature when watched on TV.

I will go into Saturday expecting to be underwhelmed by the NTRA webcast, but it is something NTRA should have been doing for a while and hopefully I will come away impressed.

Crowded out

The Equispace blog covers the ESPN coverage situation this weekend of the Lane's End Stakes, complete with a link to Alex Waldrop's NTRA blog commenting on how and when the the NTRA decides to buy time on ESPN for Racing telecasts.

Still shaking my head that we had no coverage the weekend before last weekend. That weekend we had 4 nice derby prep races that were run, all within the same hour, which would have made for a nice one hour show on ESPN. Plus they would have avoided the March Madness Weekend which is a ratings monster. Instead this past weekend they decide to broadcast the Lane's End Stakes smack dab against the NCAA Men's Championship. CBS Sports has sent out a press release stating that on Saturday, March 21 the overall average metered market rating/share for the Tournament was a 6.3/14, up +5% from a 6.0/13 last year.

That's a tough number to compete against.

Bad enough that the NTRA has to actually buy the ad time (like infomercials do) but how is a Saturday slot against March Madness attractive to potential viewers or ad buyers?

Steroid Use

A reporter once asked Rickey Henderson if Ken Caminiti’s estimate that 50 percent of Major League Baseball players were taking steroids was accurate. His response was:

“Well, Rickey’s not one of them, so that’s 49 percent right there.”

Rickey Henderson cruised into the Hall of Fame getting 94.8 percent of the writers votes. This was Henderson's first time on the ballot. He played 25 seasons for 9 different teams. He was exciting, colorful and one helluva player. I would argue, the greatest lead off hitter ever. His stats are unbelievable. He was also always in terrific shape and played the game clean.

Mark McGuire, long suspected steroid user, did not make the Hall on his 3rd year on the ballot and saw his percentage drop to 21.9 percent from 23.6 percent. This supports my belief that people hate cheaters (including those they strongly suspect of cheating) and will reduce that player or any sport that includes cheating to irrelevancy.

The fans tolerance of steroid use is low and support will drop of any player or sport suspected of steroid use. The NTRA in October announced the Safety and Integrity Alliance Pledge. The pledge includes uniform medication rules for each racing state and a ban of steroids from racing competition.

You can fool the public for a short while, but once they become convinced you are cheating, especially with drugs, they become intolerant of you and will just shut you out. Witness the public's disdain of McGuire. How about the sport of Boxing? Can you even name the current Heavyweight Champ? I thought so, the public simply does not take the sport seriously anymore. Horse Racing must be careful to ensure the general public it is a clean game or else risk the public shunning that will follow.

Common Sense

So Yesterday around 5 pm or so I am driving down the highway listening to Ch. 126 on Sirius to "At the Races with Steve Byk" and Trainer Bobby Ribaudo (Trainer of Sword Dancer Winner Grand Couturier)is on and he says something like- If we are so concerned about what drugs we put into horses and we want them to be natural why would we run them on a unnatural surface (synthetic)? He also said something like, what about all that synthetic stuff the horses are now breathing into their lungs?

The above is not an exact quote as I was driving at the time and don't drink and drive or write and drive. But you get the point. Good old fashion New Yorker talking from the heart and thinking out loud. I'm thinking-wow, common sense. Where is the common sense in this sport? We need the head leaders of this sport to listen to guys like this. Maybe our Thoroughbred Bloggers Association com padres at the NTRA upcoming Marketing Summit can push some more good ole common sense down the pike.

NTRA response to lack of TV Coverage

Well, Alex Waldrop of the NTRA has responded to the excellent open letter posted by fellow blogger greenbutgame. I give him credit for his response and hope that the NTRA can be more forward thinking in their promotion of the sport. We need more foresight in TV coverage (the recent TV ratings have been good), more promotion of non Triple Crown events, better marketing of the handicap division and promotion of the TBA standings (see the right hand column of this blog). It is a shame that media coverage of today's card is limited. Lets hope the ESPN NEWS channel will at least have the replay of this race on their coverage later today.