Halsey Minor, Uniformity & Fisticuffs

In a recent interview in the Paulick Report, I found out that I really like Halsey Minor. Minor is a founder of CNET, a very successful internet firm which sold for almost $2.0B and he wants to buy and restore Hialeah in Florida. Why does a guy who worked in the Internet where tomorrow happens today want a piece of the racing business where tomorrow happens a decade from now? I don't know, but he appears to like racing. And he handles things like many I know in the Internet business - with common sense and no nonsense. The prose between him and a Magna Executive when discussing buying some Magna interests is pretty priceless, as reported by Ray Paulick, check it out if you are interested.

Cangamble has an excellent piece which is a microcosm about how fractured our game is. He is asking for uniformity of the simple (well we do not make it simple) practice of reporting prices. He is 100% correct. How do we allow us to show prices as $2 pick 4's somewhere, $1 tris somewhere and $2 elsewhere and on and on? It is just nuts. $2WPS, $2 ex and tri, $1 super and $1 gimmicks. That is what is pretty much expected.

To contrast other businesses/sports?

- One stock market reporting prices in pennies and another in 1/16's and another in 1/4's
- A football score by half only, instead of quarters

It would not happen.

Boom, a major league (ok, not really) scrapola at Del Mar. John Sadler is the leading trainer there and recently, despite warnings that they were testing for steroids, a pile of his horses tested positive. The crew in Cali does not much like that. So things are heating up.

Benavidez assists Del Mar's beleaguered leading trainer, John Sadler, and both have been the subject of verbal and written abuse in recent days in the wake of the California Horse Racing Board's ongoing crackdown on steroids in horse racing. Though not formally charged, Sadler saw his barn raided by the CHRB last Monday. That led to much speculation in the local horse racing community.

According to Benavidez, a member of Headley's group assaulted him.

“I have witnesses who saw this guy grab me by my neck and lift me off the ground by three, four inches,” Benavidez said.

Rival trainer Bruce Headley was nonplussed.

“Trouble in the tunnel, that's all,” Headley said. “We were just smarting off to each other, kind of a yelling match. No blows struck. We were just razzing him a little bit about all his steroid positives, and he couldn't take it.”

Headley wants trainers to quit using steroids on their horses.

“I don't like this steroid stuff, not at all,” Headley said. “I don't do it, and we don't like guys who do it. It's not fair to the other people. (Sadler) kept doing it because he knew he wasn't going to get fined, just warned, and he took all the money, trounced everyone.”

Sounds like if it was EPO someone actually might have thrown a punch.

We speak of marketing here on the blog sometimes. I was just at the Hambletonian conference where marketing was spoken of and racing is trying to get a hold of the medium. This is an example of how things grow on the internet, and how companies are very aware of what is being said about them on it. Tiger Woods golf is a huge seller for Electronic Arts. It turns out their last ad campaign was viral. They saw a Youtube video by two gamers which showed a glitch where Tiger can hit a ball on water. So much for the glitch, EA decides to do a commercial about it (watch here). An interesting way to show that the world is changing, day by day.