Ryan Miller

$%!@. !@%$. !%@$#.

Racing needs to figure out a way to keep its stars in the game.

For me it was Jim Craig.

I walked around with a red and white bedsheet, draped over my back, for weeks after the 'Miracle on Ice.' My dad kept telling me Tretiak was the better goalie but try telling a seven year old it isn't all about the 'W'.

Recently transplanted to equatorial Siberia, one doesn't find opportunity to work on the glove hand much, so my platonic obsession turned to "Toni" Schumacher. When Koln (I don't know how to type the umlaut) lost the Bundesliga championship to Hamburg, in 1982, I cried for a week.

And my dad told me the best goalie doesn't always win.

After the 1982 World Cup, you couldn't talk to me, although, in truth, Renat Dasaev was the best goalie in the tournament.

And my dad told me the best goalie doesn't win.

Ryan Miller, if I were not already a goalie and a hockey freak, would be my man-crush. If he didn't play for Buffalo, I would be stalking his ass right now.

How many kids will walk away from these....quadrennial sporting events, set in Alpine locales, during the time between the Autumnal and Vernal equinox...thinking about hockey and wanting to be like Ryan Miller? How many will follow that dream and accomplish great things in that game? How many will become damn Sabres fans?

And he deserves for them to be.

Ryan Miller will go back and play for the Sabres. He will be there for this new generation of fans to follow. They will have an interest in the game because he will be there for them. They are hooked and will probably stay hooked because the catalyst for their interest will remain in the equation.

He will, if the Sabres are smart, stay there for a while. He won't retire for stud duties (though, admittedly, that might lure even me away) or lucrative commercial endorsements. He lost and received resounding applause from knowledgeable fans. Nobody thought less of him in defeat.

In fact, I think they thought more.

After tonight's game, my daughter cried for a little while. She doesn't really understand what happened but she knows when her old man is acting like a freak and what losing looks like (she is a Cubs fan).

Tonight, it was my turn, to let her know, the best goalie doesn't always win.

Ansoff Matrixing

Last year, during the Cowboys' Thanksgiving Day game, Avatar teased its upcoming release on the crazy ass monitor they have in the stadium. The game was a nationally televised game on FOX and Brad, Terry, et. al. hyped it up during the pre-game. That alone made me not watch it.

John Pricci has a post concerning the lack of advertising for the R.A. v Z. match up. How the NTRA, the self proclaimed marketing branch of the game, might be so cash strapped to preclude its purchasing air time to promote the event.

Is it possible, right now, they might be rifling through the sofa cushions, looking for spare change to make a D-Daylike push to get the upcoming Secretariat movie in the mainstream? A crazy media blitz, with universal track support and a coordinated effort by racing jurisdictions to cash this ticket? Buying up air time during the KD broadcast?

If not, they should be.

Pooling resources

Under the umbrella of NTRA, lies NTRA Investments LLC.

Within the framework of what passes for inter-track agreements and ADW revenue distribution, lies a gaping hole the size of the game.

What is there to prevent NTRA Investments from finding a backer, say The Jockey Club or Sheikh Mohammed or Halsey Minor(what happened to him?), and co-signing a loan to start up an industry standard ADW-wholly owned by the NTRA? Since the NTRA is not-for profit, it could pool all the ADW wagers and distribute them according to source, without regard for its own profit. A central clearing house if you will.

The office gets to market the game as well as the gambling and has a say regarding the direction of the revenue stream.

Every track pays a fee or a contribution to enter into deal (much like they do now). NTRA (backed by the loan or whoever) agrees to match all source contributions, thereby doubling the pot.

All wagers are funneled back to the host tracks with an administrative fee assessed by the NTRA, say 1%, to cover stamps, and bolster the original pot. Since host tracks and wagering tracks are in the agreement, the allocation of revenue is agreed upon no matter the source. Laurel to Gulfstream or Yavapai to Belmont. It doesn't matter.

Tracks get their money and gamblers get to bet on whatever track they want without blackouts. NTRA could buy out an ADW with the loan or start their own and build it to compete. Get somebody who knows what they're doing. Franchise it, have one in every shopping mall. Dream BIG.

Use the recognition, such as it is, of the office to promote the game and the ADW and have a say in the integrity of the sport.

At the end of the year, the pooled money is distributed back to the tracks according to whatever metrics they want, based on all source revenue; or field size; or fatalities per start...whatever.

Say, for argument, ten tracks sign up and each pays in $50,000. The total pot, after matching, becomes $1,000,000 plus whatever additional monies result from the commingled ADW revenue pool. At the end of the year, if the money is distributed evenly, every track gets at least double their money back, which they could turn around and funnel back into the pool or use for purses or, say, I don't know, customer service amenities.

Get a big name sponsor, or any sponsor for that matter, to support the initiative and back the loan or even fund the matching up to a certain amount. They have exclusivity of marketing and the game gets a financial kick in the pants.

If tracks dispute the revenue sharing or the percentage of distribution, institute a system of punishment where revenue could be subtracted from the offending track but with a penalty commensurate to a third of the infraction on the plaintiff track.

So, if Gulfstream thinks Laurel, over the course of the year made out to the tune of $30,000 at their expense, it could petition to have Laurel's end of year distribution reduced by the 30k-Gulfstream would not get that money, it would just stay in the pool. In addition, for filing the complaint, Gulfstream's distribution would be reduced by a third of the stated amount, or 10k. This would prevent tracks from just frivolously bitch slapping each other around.

The initial stake is the thing. Who is going to back it?

But who wouldn't join it and why?

On Keyser Soze and malaise

In 'The Usual Suspects', the entity that is Keyser Söze is truly born when rival smugglers working for the Hungarian mob invade his house while he is away, rape his wife and hold his children hostage. When Söze arrives, they kill one of the children to show him their resolve, then threaten to kill his wife and remaining children if he does not surrender his business to them.

Then he showed those men of will what will really was.

Rather than give in to their demands, and to prevent his family from having to live with the memory of what happened, he murders his loved ones and all but one of the Hungarians, whom he spares, knowing that the survivor would tell the mafia what happened. (Wikipedia)

That describes the mood I find myself in lately, at least as it pertains to horse racing.

A fluke of the calendar shows me with a few minutes to spare away from my homework and I can't shake the feeling of resignation enveloping me.

The promise of this game is beneficent but the squalid morass of intransigence and incompetence it tenants is revolting and a cause for pathos. The only thing recurring is the desire to burn the whole, bloody thing.

I have somehow lost sight of what it means to be a fan, unable to see past the dysfunction and torpor.

I don't believe things will get better. I don't believe the right people are in control, no matter how smart or nice they are. This level of incompetence feeds upon itself and once entrenched, fights tenaciously to maintain its parasitic attachment.

Everybody knows what needs to happen. So why is it not implemented? Because the disparate executives don't have an interest in relinquishing what little control they have.

In September of '08 I wrote this post on the recently concluded NTRA marketing summit. Has anything changed?

I don't understand a lot of things; logarithms for one. I also don't get why the stupid ass compiler I'm using, which as far as I can tell is made entirely of human ass, won't just parse my bloody code instead of kicking it back with 'syntax errors'. Whatever.

But, ultimately, I don't understand how I am supposed to, without abandoning principle, patronize this sport? How can I take issue with the state of the game and continue to vote with my money, implicitly granting it exception?

My dream was to breed and race my own stock. Work on the side with a trainer and then get my own license. Retire to Maryland or Kentucky and just kick around the track with my string of two or three horses. My wife's aunt used to do that.

She bred a few horses and raced them in Maryland during the nineties. She became discouraged by the state of the game back then and got out after circumstances conspired against her. When I talked to her about my goals she hinted at the real nature of the industry but was gracious enough to not bitch slap me back then.

I wish she had. The structure of the game lends itself to the low road and the lowest common denominator.

The nature of the game deserves better than that.

Anagnorisis

The Greek crisis has at least two different dimensions. One is a fiscal deficit, aggravated by Athens’ mismanagement and deception; the other is the protracted loss of competitiveness, especially within the Eurozone, leading to a large current account deficit.(Full article here)

Replace any Hellenic reference with a horse racing one and the parallels become frightening.

The day will come, and it is not too far off, when racing will have to stab out its own eyes.

Raise your hand if you're stupid

Marginal Revolution is a daily visit for me and I am rarely disappointed. If this recent post does nothing else, it brings the lowest common denominator into stark relief.

This really has nothing to do with horse racing, I just found it hysterical.

Pay it forward

Seth Godin released a free ebook, a compilation of over seventy big thinkers, whatever that means, and their thoughts on how to approach life, customers, relationships...whatever.

Maybe somebody could pass this along to Alex Waldrop and the disparate track executives. I am pretty sure my stuff gets funneled to their spam folder, then again, so does Dr. Patricia Hogan's, so I am in good company.

The unforgiving minute

There is something better in all of us.

A hidden voice looking for the resonance, the coincident harmonic in the universe pervading us. The better angels watching over us, crying their tears of loss for the banal atrocities we commit upon ourselves in the course of completing pedestrian tasks.

Within this maelstrom lies the calm eye of compassion and perception. The karmic compulsion for decency and acceptance. A communal tide carrying us to a far, pure, ever distant country but one with an unwavering polar star.

Within this game the pendulum swings with maddening frequency; a cadence comparable to a tachycardic sprinter on coke. That pandemonic whitecap roils us in the crucible of definition and spits us out on the beachhead, expended and prostrate; naked to the world.

With so much wrong, with so much broken, why do we not see the smallest betterments in this game from those in a position to actually carry them out? While adrift, why do we continue to look to those poor souls, asleep at the helm, for guidance?

It took the smallest-in the literal and figurative sense-within this game, to finally stand up and say with one voice, 'Enough is enough.' The jockeys at Penn National refused to patronize Gill any longer and suddenly the game became aware of this man and his brand of sportsmanship. A man upon whom this dysfunctional and grotty confederacy of dunces we call a league, bestowed the highest award this game has to offer.

We can all cry out for the untold atrocities those noble animals within this game endure on a daily basis. We can wail and bemoan the takeout, the lack of marketing, the headless tacking into the funnel cloud of public oblivion. We can wax poetic about the better days and the sporting nature of better men. But without the resolve to reach out to each other and look for the good that lies buried within all of us, the substance of things hoped for in the evidence of things unseen, the honest effort of will and basic decency, we might as well just spit into the wind.

We have to hope we can learn from our mistakes and accept the change that needs to come.

How far will we get in our sixty seconds' worth of distance run?

On storytelling and the Voltron Principle

I haven't posted anything in a while and this is just to quiet the voices in my head. As Pascal wrote, 'I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time'.

Way back, before technology and the invention of on demand anything. Back when Walkmans were de rigueur and Eddie Murphy was actually funny, Voltron had a transitory moment in the sun.

To those uninitiated, the premise centered on a group of five pilots, commanding five robot lions, charged with protecting the planet Arus. King Zarkon, the rapscallion he was, albeit with a seemingly sempiternal fiscal basin and zonked board of directors, would send his most recent budgetary boondoggle to begin a brouhaha on the planet and the band of five would pilot their feline contrivance to save the day in the final four minutes of the episode.

The drama evolved from their preternatural disremembering of previous errors in judgement. This little joy luck club would jump into their phallic pellets and individually charge off to do battle, invariably getting their ass handed to them. With no time left in the episode and less for the doomed planet, one of these mental midgets would conceptualize the notion of mating the five lions into Voltron, the Defender of the Universe (a feature that comes standard with the unit). Once assembled, they would draw their mighty sword and cut the bad robot up in time for commercial.

Now why the hell wouldn't they just join up from the beginning and make it back to the hangar in time for happy hour?

Racing has a similar dysfunction but it lacks the Voltron option.

No story arc exists. No structure informs the neophyte, who runs in what division and what a win in any race means in the grand scheme. I'm a fan and I don't get the progression of the season, because there is none. How am I supposed to explain it to my friends who think the Kentucky Derby is the championship?

This sop to breeders and stud fees has to stop. Graded races have to mean something again and until their numbers significantly decrease, no credible argument can be made by industry types that they have the best interests of the sport and the breed at heart.

The story leading to the Kentucky Derby has the fundamentals in place (I think the KD should be the first 3yo GI of the season but that is a fight for another day.) Why does everyone just forget the template after the Belmont?

If there are two seasons to the year, the Triple Crown and then the BC, why not develop a narrative? A three act play in six parts? Why is there no gauntlet for older horses? Why is the Claiming Crown treated like the red headed step-child? The Breeders' Cup defines nothing; the BCS is a fustercluck of Leviathan proportions, I'll grant you, but at least they crown a champion at the end of the day.

F1 has a structure similar to racing in that the tracks are not owned by the league and races are held at one track at a time. The Bahrain GP is not run the same day as Monaco...that would be stupid. It would dilute the talent pool and fans would end up changing the channel-if they could find it. At the end of the season-and there is an end-the team (among other categories) with the most points wins.

Points are objective. No ambiguity exists when comparing numbers and if the funding of this sport relies so heavily on figures and payouts, where does the disconnect lie when the horses run?

Return to the system a sense of exclusivity, among the races. If maidens can run in GI races and horses eligible for N2l can win them, what the hell are we expecting for the future of this game? Grade I races, in theory, exhibit the best that horse racing has to offer. How asinine does that argument sound when Da'Tara is counted among the Belmont winners?

There should be qualifying criteria and damn few ways of meeting them. Off the top of my head:

• GIII eligible horses must have won N3X or listed stakes.
• GII won or placed in GIII
• GI won or placed in GII
• Reduce meet lengths-No track needs to run for over 45 days
• Cut back racing days to Fri-Sun (when your customers are actually off)
• Have the NTRA Alliance actually serve a purpose by developing a tiered track system based on average daily purse. (This separates the lower level claiming tracks from the so called boutique race meets)

I could go on and this is not even fleshed out. Nobody is willing to cooperate because it would involve a certain amount of sacrifice and we can't have that.

So instead of agreeing that a little bit of something is better than all of nothing, developing a story; a progression for the season-a destination, the disparate tracks try to one up each other and insist on a salmagundi of mediocrity, a pastiche of pedestrianism, a...something else rococo that adds up to of mix of badness.

Why not put Voltron together from the beginning and spare everyone their individual serving of whoop-ass?