Links for 2009-11-10
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Tale of the Tape. (What a year. Two amazing distaffers; an unprecedented debate. Emotions aside, the honor must go to Rachel Alexandra. She ran more, she won more, she set records.)
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Timeform ranks Goldikova at 132, a single pound ahead of Classic victress Zenyatta at 131 and two pounds ahead of Turf winner Conduit at 130.
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Racing Post rates Zenyatta at 128, one pound behind Rachel Alexandra at 129, on their list of top performers. "With two such amazing distaffers adding to the outstanding exploits of Sea The Stars and Goldikova in Europe, this has been a season the like of which will be hard to replicate."
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And the answer can be found in Australia. "America's great dailies? They just don't get it." See “Is the Times ignoring boxing” and comments on 10/30/09 post for related insights.
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The sports network continues its rise; leagues most likely competition.
Links for 2009-10-30
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Preliminary list of confirmed panels, including Future of Context, Indirect Collaboration, Process Journalism. Looks like another must-attend year.
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Collated ante-post odds from UK/Ireland betting shops (via @robinhowlett).
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“The 33-horse international contingent … was greatly needed to help fill the 14-race program this year.” Also notes re: Godolphin.
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Search tool for past 25 years of BC data (includes charts and recaps).
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“Your reference to horse racing makes for a neat comparison with boxing. When the Triple Crown season rolls around, interest in horse racing grows exponentially beyond the usual fan base. But once that season ends, or the possibility of a Triple Crown winner ends, our coverage returns to minimal.”
Links for 2009-10-07
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"In his lathered coat and refusal to settle early in the race, there were the faintest signs that the wonder horse's internal machinery was starting to clank and groan. But it was hard to defend that suspicion when he burst from the pack, arrow-like, and passed the lollipop two lengths in front. This was not a bloodstock deal, a betting coup or a prize-money grab. It was flesh and blood and beauty."
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"Handicappers admittedly offer the one objective gauge against which new champions can be measured against the great names of the past. But they can make no allowance for the fact that different horses have different ways of showing scorn for their inferiors." The limitations of formulas and figures when it comes to quantifying greatness.
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An odd move that doesn't make much sense. "On both technical and philosophical levels, there’s no meaningful difference between blogs that publish news and news sites that aren’t published as blogs."
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"In preliminary results still being vetted, based on all tweets of 300,000 random users up to May 2009 (gender tracking excludes bots and ambiguous names), women make up 54 percent of Twitter users but are more likely to follow men (44 percent compared to 56 percent). Men are more likely to follow men, too (35 percent compared to 65 percent). But genders tend to tweet at the same rate."
Links for 2009-09-21
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"Here, as all of racing knows, is the distillation of everything breeders and owners and trainers have searched for over centuries."
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Marking the first anniversary of David Foster Wallace's death. "You don’t need a Ph.D. in literature to recognize the power of Wallace’s work. You just need a set of healthy nerve endings."
Favorites for 2009-08-30
Each day, I browse Flickr for interesting racing images. Here are a few photos recently saved as favorites …
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Jessica Chapel is a writer, editor, and web producer living in Cambridge, MA. Railbird is a thoroughbred horse racing blog published continuously since June 2004. More ›
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