2016 Blog Stats

I find posts about blog stats at year end a little self indulgent, but I'm bored at lunch right now, and was looking at something, so here we go.

For the dozen or so regular readers, perhaps you'll find them interesting.

In 2016, you visited from a lot of countries, but not surprisingly, the land of the free and home of the brave led the pack, with 71% of hits. Canada was second - as we often are to the US in everything except curling, and ice packed snow, where we kick your Yankee asses - at 18%. Australia - where harness racing is still pretty big - was 3rd at 4%.

I weeded out the well-publicized visits over Christmas from RUSSIA. There were a full 4,000 hits over the holidays from Moscow. Either a whole bunch of Russian people, drunk on vodka, huddled around wood stoves, wearing fur hats (that's all the stereotypes I can come up with), decided they loved horse racing and visited, or this was a coordinated attack by Vladimir Putin. I'm really not sure.

When it comes to browser usage, youse folks are a savvy lot. IE was 3rd with only 18% of hits. Chrome was first. Google is going to take over the world. As an aside, remember when everyone was buying Netscape stock?

As for posts......

The post on the Sword Dancer - the race where there was more rabbit usage than in Watership Down - was number one with a bullet. It was not only the highest trafficked post in 2016 on this blog, it was the highest trafficked post ever. At over 1,000 hits above the second place finisher it wasn't even close. I thought about this and I think it was because no one else was talking about it. It happened, then silence, except on social media. 90% of the hits came from SM, and it wasn't even linked anywhere.

Second in traffic was The Derby Bathing Index ®. Yes, this is true. I'm not lying. You people are crazy.

Third was a post about harness racing, which is odd because harness racing is not thoroughbred racing (there are "buggies" in harness racing, and people don't like buggies as much). Why Is Harness Racing So Entitled was not a feel good piece by any means, but people read it.

It was another big year for the "Greatest Trotter Who Ever Lived" post from 2009. This thing just won't die. It received 400 views in 2016 and it still gets commented on. Most of these hits are from overseas where trotters are huge. People are finding it organically.

The comments that come in for that piece each year always make me chuckle, like this recent international incident:

"Varenne is the best! I am from Malta. Americans believe they are always the best at everything. In fact, they know nothing of the world and other countries. I breed horses trotting, it is my world, I know the history of all the horses, because I like to study. VARENNE IS THE BEST!"

"Stupid Italian Varenne trolls. Varenne's pedigree is 97% American and 3% French. He is 0% Italian. He got destroyed by Viking Kronos at 3. He dodged Moni Maker in the Prix D' Amerique and Elitloppet. He was a good older trotter, nothing more. Muscle Hill would have destroyed him."

" Response to the last comment. You're a American Envious troll !
You said a bunch of crap"

OK, on a more serious note, thanks for reading the blog for like 9 years now. It seems it started like yesterday.