A new forum for the racing fan

The evolution of a nontraditional, essentially digital racing media has spawned the Self-appointed Fan Committee (a link to which is in the blogroll on the left rail), which was launched on Tuesday by two prominent bloggers -- Jessica Chapel, publisher of Railbird Media, and Dana Byerly, publisher of Green But Game.

This is a welcome and inevitable development resulting from an unfiltered exchange of ideas and opinion among those whose ideas and opinions are valued least by those who steer the course of most racetracks. Where once discourse of this type was limited to those who congregated at racetracks, small groups of the disenfranchised and neglected whose money -- $15 billion annually according to current estimates -- fuels the sport and whose tolerance is admirably durable, the Internet has expanded the dialogue among those whose participation is now largely remote to a national and even international stage that somehow those who make decisions that affect directly racing’s core audience continue to ignore.

The blog movement in racing was spawned among fans and horseplayers, not products of the mainstream or trade media, whose entry into this particular arena is a relatively new, differently focused development and, in the main, remains so. Grassroots movements tend to either wither in frustration or gain momentum and the development of the Self-appointed Fan Committee is evidence of the latter.

A savvy executive would make this forum a daily read. (Unfortunately, that sentence is grossly optimistic.)

Eventually, the disenfranchised organize.

Make no mistake, the rank-and-file racing fan and horseplayer -- the person who walks through the general admission or clubhouse gate and brings the money that pays every purse and every salary -- is disenfranchised.

Look no further for evidence than the New York Racing Association, which has abandon entirely the marketing of racing while focusing on the peddling of irrelevant signage and various sponsorship arrangements, most unrelated to the sport or the primary product, which is sold at betting windows. (Note the eyesore on the starting gate promoting a company best known for double parking and the New York Post is now the “official” newspaper of NYRA and has been referred to as its “partner,” though Ed Fountaine, the last full-time racing writer in New York, continues to offer appropriate criticism.)

Many who paid dearly for seats on Belmont Stakes day found the view clubhouse turn obscured by a temporary luxury accommodation and those making their way to Saratoga may find a similar obstruction. Where once class distinction at Saratoga was defined by access to living grass – the saddling paddock – it is now defined by access to air conditioning and an observation deck on the roof for mostly corporate customers.

The marketing of racing has not become an afterthought. No thought is expended in that area.

Last week, a Tom Durkin race call inspired by a horse named Doremifasolatido brought down the house. In another time, the video would have been distributed to every television news outlet in New York as well as the networks, major and minor – and would have been widely aired. Free publicity on a national scale would have been assured. In this age, this can be accomplished in a matter of minutes. Durkin’s musical stretch call, however, was distributed nowhere because the exposure of racing is no longer NYRA’s primary concern.

Curlin is likely to run in the Man o’ War on at Belmont on Saturday. He is the 2007 Horse of the Year. Let’s see what NYRA does to minimize that opportunity. Likely not a thing. Only racing fans and horseplayers are interested in seeing the thoroughbred regarded as the best in the world make his first start on grass in advance of a possible attempt to win one of the most prestigious races run in Europe.

Horseplayers, in fact, rank low on the list of priorities at NYRA. Horseplayers, in fact, are regarded openly by at least one executive with contempt

On the night before the Belmont Stakes, while he was extolling the brilliance that resulted in the construction of a large wooden desk in the Belmont Park clubhouse lobby, it was suggested to a high-ranking NYRA executive that the organization has lost sight of the core audience.

What, he asked, was the core audience?

The horseplayers.

“ ------ the horseplayers,” he said, employing a widely used euphemism for copulation.

That’s where you stand in New York.

A forum easily accessible to those with the power to at least take note if not action is a welcome addition to the digital dialogue. The Self-appointed Fan Committee website is a fine place to begin and should (yeah, right) become the home page of every racing executive in the land.