Railbird 2004–2019

Archive for 2008

David Foster Wallace, RIP

Reported by Edward Champion, confirmed by the LA Times:

David Foster Wallace, the novelist, essayist and humorist best known for his 1996 tome “Infinite Jest,” was found dead last night at his home in Claremont, according to the Claremont Police Department. He was 46.

This is so sad and senseless. A suicide.

I am stunned. To say that Wallace was a literary hero and that his work had a profound effect on how I write, read, think about the world is an understatement. There was a time in my life before racing, when literature and writing were central, when talking about the oppressiveness of the ironic mode and the purpose of fiction and the merits of hysterical realism all seemed very important, because these were not only questions of literature, but of life and meaning. Wallace was an inescapable, but not unwelcome influence, the young writer who best captured the messy modern world, with its distractions and digressions, all of which required navigating with a sort of conscious uncertainty if one was really ever to experience anything. (And if that all sounds quite jejune, well, I was in my 20s and fresh out of a liberal arts college then.)

Wallace wrote with charm and intelligence on grammar, tennis, talk radio, taking a cruise, irony, infinity, etc. He had po-mo groupies, was adored by grad students, attracted his share of skeptics. The 1,079 page “Infinite Jest” was the dystopian, clever novel that made him famous; he became known for his footnotes (and was parodied for same). He was innovative, playful (with a gift for the absurd), and often hilarious, but never light — “he was not unfamiliar with the heft of existence.” His work still had potential; the best was possibly still ahead.

Horse racing was not a subject that drew Wallace’s attention, but he was a former athlete and a sports fan, and he wrote beautifully of what it is about sports that inspires passion in his essay, “How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart”:

Here is a theory. Top athletes are compelling because they embody the comparison-based achievement we Americans revere — fastest, strongest — and because they do so in a totally unambiguous way. Questions of the best plumber or best managerial accountant are impossible even to define, whereas the best relief pitcher, free-throw shooter, or female tennis player is, at any given time, a matter of public statistical record. Top athletes fascinate us by appealing to our twin compulsions with competitive superiority and hard data.

Plus, they’re beautiful. There is about world-class athletes carving out exemptions from physical laws a transcendent beauty that makes manifest God in man. So actually more than one theory, then. Great athletes are profundity in motion. They enable abstractions like power and grace and control to become not only incarnate but televisable. To be a top athlete performing, is to be that exquisite hybrid of animal and angel that we average unbeautiful watchers have such a hard time seeing in ourselves.

“Writers. They always break your heart.” Not unlike horses.

Posted in Readings on September 13, 2008

Alternate View

Perhaps not despite the fact, but because there were:

I point to numbers crunched earlier by Steven Crist.
John Pricci comes to a similar conclusion about market dilution, in a lot more words.
Re: Equibase, usually mild Blood-Horse editor Dan Liebman is outraged at the “preposterous decision” made by the industry’s data collector to stop providing meet-total handle figures. That is preposterous! And not only because such a ridiculous decision makes it harder to report on trends in the industry, but because the attitude behind it is so contrary to this era’s ethos of increasing access to information and data. Another reason for “the brash and the bold to take over,” as commenter JS put it elsewhere …
In happier news, Monograph Mile season kicks off: The Thoroughbred Times is taking nominations for its annual book award, won last year by T.D. Thornton of Suffolk Downs for “Not by a Longshot.”

Posted in Data/IP, The Industry on September 12, 2008

Everywhere but Here

Nothing to read here? Check out the Raceday 360 Wire, a new site that scours the web looking for freshly posted blog entries, photos, videos, etc. related to thoroughbred horse racing in (almost) real time. A smattering of enhancements are already planned; comments and suggestions for more are welcome. Regular blogging will resume shortly …

Posted in Miscellany on September 10, 2008 / Tagged r360wire

The Latest Meme

… promoting racing to sports fans. Bob McNair, recently divested of his thoroughbred holdings, on the idea:

And John Sabini, recently appointed chairman of the New York State Racing and Wagering Board:

Fairplex tries out the approach:

The challenge of promoting racing is that it’s both sport and game, and the game is what fuels the sport. Pursuing sports fans is a fine starting point, but it can’t be the end point.

Posted in Marketing on September 5, 2008

What’s Lost

… when newspaper reporters on the racing beat are laid off or retired, then replaced by general sports writers, who might be fine journalists but have little understanding of the sport or the industry and its ongoing stories, is exemplified in this dull bit of LA Times reporting on SoCal synthetic surface tracks, which rehashes every point every racing fan or even vaguely interested reader has already come across elsewhere, padded out by press release quality quotes.

Posted in Media/TV/Film, Synthetic Surfaces on September 4, 2008