20 Years, Really?

[Wandering Eyes]

The thing I admired most about my late father was that, in spite of a difficult childhood and lack of any sort of formal education, he proudly provided for his family by working for the same Chicago-based insurance company for over three decades, the only career he ever knew. I’ve got another 10 or more years to go and I’ve had a few more starts and stops than he had, but today, I’d like to think my dad would be proud as I mark 20 years on the job here at the Thoroughbred Daily News.

To say things have changed during that time would be an understatement of titanic proportions. Upstairs at the old TDN offices in Fair Haven were about five desks and like three fax machines on the back wall. Because, after all, that was the means to disseminate the TDN, as a good many of you would recall. The end of the night with the fax machines was always a bit of a crapshoot, as different groups went on different machines and you closed your eyes and said a silent prayer that the 20-page fax didn’t get stuck 18 pages through. It did, frequently enough.

The paper wasn’t exactly a thing of beauty, aesthetically speaking. Black-and-white (since it had to go over the fax, you know), a handful of very rudimentary ads on a handful of pages. Here is the TDN from September 9, 1998. As I went into the archives to download it, there was no paper for September 8, a Tuesday. It occurs to me now that the TDN didn’t publish an edition because the prior day was a holiday. Today, the TDN is closed on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day only. That’s no knock or a complaint, just a function of the world we live in.

Those were the days of dial-up internet back then, that all-too-familiar dial tone, then screeching as you connected to AOL at a snail’s pace. Back then, one of the editorial staffers was tasked with stopping at the local 7-11 or Monmouth Park if it made sense so we’d at least have some past performances to deal with. Absent that, it was a slow-ish interface with the Bloodstock Research database to pull up whatever form they offered. Another of the staffers would be asked to compose–by hand–the list of races from whatever tracks were running. It wasn’t easy to watch live racing either, nor were race replays readily accessible. Most of the race reporting we did was based on the charts. Today’s far-more-automated (but not necessarily less labor-intensive)TDN is read by 15,000 or so industry professionals and the more casual racing fan in all corners of the globe, illustrated in living color, with a variety of color ads from loyal clients, race replays from home and abroad and captivating features put together by a group of TDNers and contributors I am pleased to call colleagues–and friends.

I arrived in New Jersey very green, but with passion in abundance–that had to be the reason I was hired, because I really didn’t know anything about anything (except German, right Mr. DeCaspers?). But I gradually accumulated knowledge. One of the best things about this business is that there is always something to learn, there are always new faces to interview, new breeding patterns to study. In my two decades here, I have been blessed to gain first-hand knowledge of the sales scene, having made my first trip to Barretts in 2000 (I think, where there was a memorable exchange with the late Prince Ahmed Salman I’ll never forget).

There have been many trips to Fasig-Tipton Kentucky and Saratoga and and countless trips to Keeneland, where reporting at the beginning did not involve a laptop or any writing, but rather a phone call back to the office to relay quotes from the corridor at Newtown Paddocks or from one of the phone areas in the Keeneland sales pavilion. I cherish the professional and personal relationships I have established and maintained with sales company personnel and with those men and women who I used to sit alongside in those press boxes.

As time has gone on, I have cast my net further afield to become familiar with racing in–well, wherever racing takes place, really. Those of you who know me are well aware that Hong Kong racing is near and dear to me, despite that first trip over in 2000 that went Newark, halfway to Chicago, back to Newark, to San Francisco, to an hour west of Alaska, then back to Anchorage and finally–three days later–to Hong Kong. Pretty sure I was on the ground for fewer than 72 hours before returning. Sunline and Fairy King Prawn made it worth the trip. Working for this publication has afforded me that opportunity, as well as a trip to places like Singapore, and while I haven’t been to South Africa or Australia or South America, my work here has made it feel like I have, even as a Queen’s Plate or a Melbourne Cup or an Estrellas remain on my bucket list.

I’m not one who really relishes passage-of-time occasions, just ask my kids. I am the ultimate sap. But, from a professional standpoint, it would be impossible for me to be more content with my station in life. To ‘work’ at the TDN has been very much a dream come true.

So, to Barry and to Sue, I offer a heartfelt thank you for bringing me into the fold way back when. Time really has flown, but there are more chapters yet to be written.

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