JC / Railbird

On the Eve of an Anniversary

It was four years ago this month (June 17 to be exact) that Railbird began. As hard as it might be to believe now, when there are more than 35 members of the Thoroughbred Bloggers Alliance and dozens of blogs published independently or by the NTRA, Blood-Horse, and DRF, the racing blogosphere was a barren place those days. There was Equidaily, and Oregon Racing News, and trainer Tim Woolley’s infrequently updated original site. It would be five more months before Handride emerged, six months until Left at the Gate, and almost a year to the blog explosion.

I was then midway through a political science degree, undertaken after a stint living abroad and with vague intentions of tweaking my career, which had drifted from newspaper reporting into academic and literary publishing. I had, unexpectedly, gone crazy for racing the summer before, after a long-dormant interest in the sport was revived on a slow, muggy Saturday afternoon at Suffolk Downs, and all I wanted to do was handicap and go to the racetrack. My studies in the exciting field of post-Soviet East European civil society suffered, although I did find uses for the quantitative analysis and statistics work I had slogged through first semester.

Railbird arose from a simple motivation: I set out to create the racing blog I wanted to visit, a site that would point to the important news of the day and the most interesting commentary, and link to surprising and out of the way bits on the web, which is pretty much what the site tried to be through 2004, 2005, and 2006 (thanks to the Wayback Machine for those flashbacks); 2007 brought small changes. I guess a few of you were looking for the same thing, because the response was amazing — traffic was terrific out of the gate and grew phenomenally through June 2006, when I started an interesting interlude at the Daily Racing Form and briefly lost time for posting, and resumed growing when I returned to blogging a few months later and realized how much I’d missed being part of the conversation while I was away. To say that maintaining Railbird has been one of more professionally and personally rewarding experiences I’ve had is an understatement, and I’m grateful for the many wonderful friendships and opportunities that have come about because of this small site, and for the chance to take part in the growth of the smart and passionate community devoted to this most magnificent sport.

I’m at work on something new now, a web site about which I am very excited (more on that in coming weeks), but Railbird, I hope, will go on for another four years. It’s been a lot of fun since that first post, and I credit every reader, friend, and fellow blogger for making that so. Thank you.


7 Comments

Great news — looking forward to the web site!

Posted by gorevidalfan on June 13, 2008 @ 12:21 pm

“I had, unexpectedly, gone crazy for racing the summer before” … I know the feeling!
Congrats and thank you! I can say with certainty that Railbird is one of the reasons I started blogging. Here’s to Railbird, the original racing blog!

Posted by dana on June 13, 2008 @ 12:49 pm

Great stuff. Enjoy the blog and the thoughtful intelligent point of view.

Posted by robert on June 13, 2008 @ 3:15 pm

Happy anniversary.

Posted by John S. on June 13, 2008 @ 4:53 pm

Railbird is one of the first sites I discovered when I, too, went unexpectedly crazy for racing in 2005 — and it remains one of my favorite sites lo, these many years later. You neglected to mention that Railbird does more than just point to “the important news of the day and the most interesting commentary” … it also provides some of the most insightful content on the web. Thanks for all of the work you’ve put into this site — I can’t wait to see the next big thing from Railbird!

Posted by QQ on June 14, 2008 @ 9:26 am

Congrats, JC. I don’t get to spend as much time reading blogs as I’d like — who has enough time these days? — and my own pathetic, abortive effort at a blog was a miserable failure (no time), but I always make a point to visit Railbird. It’s must-read stuff.
Congratulations on making it four years. I hope you make it many more — it’s excellent stuff. Cheers.

Posted by Chris Garrity on June 16, 2008 @ 8:58 am

Happy Anniversary!
Hmm … post-Soviet East European civil society studies evolving into Railbird. You can’t make that kind of stuff up!
Good luck on the new endeavor.

Posted by suebroux on June 19, 2008 @ 9:05 am