Becalmed

Adrift in the horse latitudes, an albatross around my neck, I find myself lacking anything of value to contribute; not for a lack of material, just inspiration. As Coleridge wrote and Iron Maiden covered:

Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.

I am furling my sails for now, content to outlast this malaise.

Down dropt the breeze,
The sails dropt down,
'Twas sad as sad could be;
And we did speak only to break
The silence of the sea!

All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody Sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon.

Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.

There are a plethora of quality blogs at the TBA homepage. Brooklyn Backstretch is a must read, whether you care about NYRA or not. HANA is making inroads in letting the industry know the bettor is a force to be reckoned with(I am late in getting this out but there will be other events. Watch this space). Railbird 2.0 is back with a vengeance and the game is better for it.

Opinions are diverse but a fundamental right. Bloggers, journalists, industry insiders and casual fans all have something to add; it just takes someone to listen, respectfully. I have not done much of that and am taking myself out of the game.

Read, read a lot, educate yourself...about anything. This game is old and will endure but it could be so much more. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

"Racing in the United States is now so big an operation that it may be endangered by its own size. It sprawls and grows bigger and bigger, and there is no possibility of intelligent centralized growth or of its lesser problems. The challenge now is to make possible, through access to information, intelligent decisions at state and local levels. With adequate knowledge at hand, we should be able to salvage the best of our traditions and discard the worst of them. The folklore of yesterday is not a sound basis for the racing of tomorrow. This is the age of automation, and the time has come for automation in racing...Why is the population of this country so fascinated by baseball? Because it knows baseball and it knows baseball because organized information is always available."
-Joe Estes speaking at the Thoroughbred Club of America, 1962

I am done for now. To those of you who stopped by on occasion, I am humbled and grateful; to those who returned, well, that's your own fault. This was never intended as a forum or much of anything really and now it will rest.

Maybe someday I will resume, on a following sea; sails reefed and on a beam reach. Until then...

But soon there breathed a wind on me,
Nor sound nor motion made :
Its path was not upon the sea,
In ripple or in shade.

It raised my hair, it fanned my cheek
Like a meadow-gale of spring--
It mingled strangely with my fears,
Yet it felt like a welcoming.

Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship,
Yet she sailed softly too :
Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze--
On me alone it blew.