Online Only, Please
A renewal notice for my Blood-Horse subscription popped up in the mail the other day. It’s been sitting on my desk since, as I waffle on re-upping for another year.
Here’s the thing — and I say this as someone who started out in print media, is an inveterate book collector, and subscribes to many magazines and little journals — I don’t want any more print in my life.
I don’t need any more print, unless it offers me something that can’t be found online — and that’s not quite the case with the Blood-Horse. Sure, I like looking at the farm ads, and the “Newcomers” list, but I’ve already read most of the content in each week’s issue by the time it arrives — on the web. The one argument for subscribing I can muster is access to BloodHorseNow.com, which is an attractive, usable site with most of the news and data I’ve come to rely on from Blood-Horse. I want to renew for that — but that means taking a print subscription, taking 52 more weeks of magazines stuffed with news I already know cluttering up my tiny New York apartment.
Dear Blood-Horse, I’d like to resubscribe. But online only. Sell me a subscription to your superb BloodHorseNow.com that doesn’t include the magazine — say, for $49. Or for $69 if I want a copy of the Stallion Register. But please — don’t make me subscribe to your print magazine anymore.
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To be fair, if I read Blood-Horse solely online, I would have missed the letter to the editor in the March 15 issue written by Man o’ War biographer Dorothy Ours about the Breeders’ Cup changes announced last month. Excerpts below:
Agreed, which is why a few of us launched a petition calling for the Breeders’ Cup to either restore the name of the Distaff or rename the race the Filly & Mare Classic, create a fans’ committee, and consider alternate Breeders’ Cup schedules. Add your name to the petition today!
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