JC / Railbird

Wow, that would be incredible. Did you submit that at SAFC yet?

Posted by dana on September 4, 2008 @ 12:37 pm

I’d love one site that gave me all of that information in an easy to use format that can be viewed on a typical mobile web 2.0 browser. But since I rarely use a ‘real’ computer, here’s how I do it:
http://eqbwireless.equibase.com/ntrawireless/index.cfm (Equibase) for quick access to entries (but no information on race other than time and types … and I can’t view Mountaineer and Charles Town entries), results, and scratches. DRF’s entries, when run through Google, render so that it’s very difficult to read.
Using Google’s ‘mobilizer’, I use DRF for workouts and advanced entry / result information — plus entries for Mnr & CT. It also allows me to view the full PDF charts … it requires a little bit of an effort to read them correctly, but once you’ve got the hang of it, it’s pretty basic.
A lot of phones will probably allow you to use the full sites, but they tend to crash my browser, so I just throw everything through Google. It isn’t pretty, but it gets the job done and I’ve found that I actually prefer doing it this way when going through the day’s information (particularly workouts!).

Posted by Nellie on September 4, 2008 @ 2:41 pm

Amen! I want more useful racing-related info for my iPhone and I’d like it all in one handy app, not at 12 different web sites, some which work fine on it, and some which can’t load.

Posted by Superfecta on September 4, 2008 @ 4:25 pm

Can you keep this post on the side, near the top so people can keep adding to this? This has to be one of the most important elements for racing in the era of mobile Internet.
MLB’s app is terrific! I used my iPod Touch at Saratoga in the clubhouse. Wi-Fi was spotty, but I was able to follow the will pays on the device instead of having to wait for them to be shown on the monitors.
Look it, racing, at least at the top levels needs to get its act together. Where is the HD Jumbotron at the Spa or Bel?
I have seen only one HD program of racing this summer — the first weekend at the Spa. Travers weekend was in standard def.
I have posted before about the ADW companies and their respective sites. It’s a circus! Youbet.net allows any racing fan, be it novice to seasoned, to access a number of video feeds — FREE! I still can’t watch this site’s video on a Mac. Youbet.com charges for video access and, of course, to wager. In New York, you can’t watch a video stream on TVG or TVG free of NYRA. Also, downstate has live coverage of Saratoga, but they apparently cut it off on the cable system at 6 p.m. In the Albany area, you can’t watch Saratoga races live on the OTB channel. In western New York, forget it! They do not carry any OTB feed on the Time Warner Cable systems of Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse. They do offer live racing coverage and video of Batavia Downs. What is a typical win pool there? $1,5000, if they’re lucky.
Back to the mobile devices — race charts in PDF form look acceptable on an iPod Touch or iPhone.
One suggestion for other areas to offer/explore: Illman has a “disabled list” and a “retired list” on his blog. Why isn’t this published in The Form? It would be even better if it included horses that were entered and then scratched and the reason why. As for the Form in the day of modern printing, look it, having newsprint smear all over me on a hot, humid day should be a bygone era complaint! Can’t they print the Form — in a smaller format — on better stock and in color? With The Saratoga Special being such a nice publication, it would be great if the DRF could work out something with them to get it printed on a better paper stock and include the PPs. Imagine if NYRA, the DRF and the ST Publishing (the people behind the Saratoga Special) got together on this? That’s for the paper era which, if you ask any newspaper guru, is a dying business.

Posted by Jim on September 5, 2008 @ 12:30 am

Nellie, that’s heroic use of your phone to find racing info. I went to similar efforts before switching from BlackBerry to iPhone last summer, and still occasionally hit frustrating glitches. True, as Jim said, PDFs look great on the device, and most racing sites work fine, even if they’re not optimized, but like Superfecta, I want one handy app that delivers all of that information.
I think one of the biggest obstacles to marketing racing right now is that such a product doesn’t exist, that the structure that would even allow such a product to be created isn’t in place. That video and data are fragmented and often hidden behind paywalls and near impossible to find, search, sort, and analyze is a serious impediment to growth. Fans like us will put up with the headaches and cobble together solutions, but potential and casual fans hit these walls and there’s little incentive (that they can see) to figuring out how to get around/over them. The ongoing ADW mess is a related issue …

Posted by Jessica on September 5, 2008 @ 1:35 pm

Please, I beg all of you (and those who are reading and agree but haven’t commented)… go to SAFC and post a submission for this idea.
One of the major (potential) strong points of SAFC is creating multiple/numerous submissions around ideas. We WANT this, let’s make a bunch of submissions so when we mail the report to the NTRA they’ll see that many people are thinking this way, not just a blogger now and again (but keep on bloggin’ too!)
(end begging)

Posted by dana on September 6, 2008 @ 3:08 pm