Thisishorseracing.com? Sure, it’s a big name, and a big idea. It’s also a lot to live up to, and something we’re excited about. But it’s not intended to be everything to all people or even everything to horse racing.
The new website, brought to you by ST Publishing – home of The Saratoga Special, Steeplechase Times and lots of other Thoroughbred journalism – intends to be a spot for reads, a spot for stories. Click, touch, poke or whatever you do here and you’ll find things to read about racing, about horses, about horsepeople. For 19 years, we produced Steeplechase Times newspaper. Every summer since 2001, we’ve produced The Saratoga Special. For the last year, we’ve edited Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred magazine. We’ve been involved with three books about racing. We’ve created 10 years of wall calendars. For the better part of two decades we’ve written about racing for our publications and others, trying to do it a little differently.
Call this the next step. Steeplechase Times is no longer a print publication. The Saratoga Special only happens in Saratoga – obviously. Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred is a monthly. This site will be a year-round platform for the kind of racing journalism we like to create.
We’ll write daily (well, we plan to write daily), we’ll dig into the archives, we’ll point you toward some other spots on the web, we’ll take feeds from our friends at Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred magazine and the Horse Racing Radio Network. If you like what you see, consider diving in a little deeper. Subscribe to the magazine, sign up for the podcasts. Follow everybody on Twitter.
Mostly, we’ll work on creating things you like to read and experience. For all we’ve done over the years, we didn’t have this option before. It’s a leap, but one we’re excited about making. The goal is to create a website you visit regularly – hourly, daily, weekly, whatever. Just come back.
The staff you should know. There’s Joe, Sean and the new guy who’s not all that new, Tom. For more, see the contact section and the blogs. There might be a few others. Photos and other contributions will come from Tod Marks, regularly, and others semi-regularly. We’ll write about racing – from Saratoga, the Mid-Atlantic, New York, Florida, steeplechase meets, Kentucky, England, Ireland, pretty much anywhere we go.
For design, we turned to our usual ace Sue Haldeman at Fairview Design. She makes sense of what we suggest, then leaves it up to us – with a lifeline, thank goodness. The site is modern, flexible, fast (we hope). It should work on your tablet, your phone, your laptop, your desktop, but probably not your Commodore 64 or Atari game system.
Keep us posted about what you like, don’t like, what works, what doesn’t. We’ve added blogs, though the term still seems strange. Nobody knew what a blog was when we started in this business. Heck, nobody knew what the Internet was.
We’re writing, still – news, features, columns, long, short, here, there, everywhere. We just hope you’ll read. Check back often, and spread the word.
What You Won’t See Here: Entries, results, speed figures, press-box notes and canned quotes not deemed as such, a whole lot of stuff you can find somewhere else.
What You Will See Here: Original content, new faces, stories that matter, educated opinions, the best stuff we can create given the constraints of a small company and hectic lives.
How You Can Help: Read, follow, share, Tweet, post, pin, whatever. Ultimately, you can advertise. Want to reach important people in Thoroughbred racing? Think about us – we can tailor a package of print and web options for any budget.
