Dudley would be proud

I had my first riding lesson today. I've hacked around on horses before but have never really had any formal instruction.

I have a newfound respect for horsemen (and I mean that in a non-specific, gender free, unisex kind of way) everywhere. It's easy to handicap a race on paper, watch it on t.v. and armchair jockey the whole thing. It is entirely different to sit on a 1200lb animal who may or may not resent you being on its back, who might just want to check out that bush you passed going 30 mph and who doesn't understand what the hell else you want, when it is giving you its all and you still are whipping it.

I get HRTV and TVG (for a nominal fee). They both profess to carry international races. TVG and HRTV make a very good show about how they carry the races from the UK; so why the hell am I watching re-runs of Inside Information and an infomercial on hidden real estate gold? WTF?! I may be way off base but I could not see a single race from the recent Newmarket meet.

I don't claim to be at all knowledgeable about signal rights and international wagering law but it seems to me that any network that wants to consider itself a serious player in the racing world should work out some arrangement with any and every track in the world. Carry all the meets, not just the festival days. France, Germany and Italy have some horse racing I hear and I have yet to see a single race from any of those places-the ARC notwithstanding.

The Japanese are somewhat reclusive but are gradually opening up and someone should be all over that. Sha Tin has HUGE fields and a culture that looks at gambling like we do at baseball.

I could probably start a public access channel (well not me...someone who actually has a clue) and carry more international races than either of these so called horse racing channels. A CNBC for horse racing is what we need. Any takers? Anyone?

I have a friend, who, although he has no interest in horse racing, is a decent enough guy. He thinks he is scoring some pithy hits on me when he claims that he is not interested in horse racing because he is not 70 yet and wondering how to spend his SS check. While I restrain myself from pointing out that by the time he IS 70 he will not have a SS check to spend (that is another rant), he is not far off base.

Racing has fallen behind the times and never marketed itself to the younger generation. Maybe, and this is just me, it is because those in control of the business have been around since the Truman administration and the high flying gadgetry of the B&W T.V.

In this era of social networking, online dating and Forex trading, what better pitch could there be than to offer the proverbial smorgasbord (I have no idea how to make the correct accent marks) of international wagering opportunities? NTRA, Mr. Waldrop, get a clue. There is an entire generation of small thumbed children out there who have never seen an analog clock, couldn't pick out the U.S. on a map and have never read a book, but they can grab a toaster and hook up to the internet and bury your ass in bad press before you figure out what the off side of a horse is. If you don't manage to connect with them, then your fan base, such as it is, will go away with that last SS check.

Incidentally, your last post, in addition to being long overdue was insulting and obfuscatory.

To fully explain where the NTRA stands on that issue, let me address it in the context of the recent industry concerns regarding horse health and safety. Our first priority is to determine what needs to be done to insure that our equine athletes are as safe as possible. The Jockey Club's Thoroughbred Safety Committee is meeting regularly, and I can report that it is looking at horse health and safety in an objective, scientific manner. Other groups will be weighing in on the matter as well.

Once we fully understand the challenges and propose the necessary solutions, how do we ever implement them without a single, national governing body to impose those solutions on all segments of the industry? This, I think, is the heart of Mary's request.

Sod off. 'Once we fully understand the challenges...' How witless are you? If you don't understand the challenges by now then you should probably go into something mindless and unproductive. The halls of Congress are full of your kind.

As a final note and a hat tip to my first infatuation, Bo Derek has been appointed to the CHRB. If she can do for horse racing what she did for short, quirky, drunk guys then all is not lost.