Friday's Here

When I was in high school I never got suspended. It seems to be different nowadays, because I am pretty sure I did worse than these two high school kids who were suspended for Tebowing.

I hope they treat this Friday as a snow day. I would.

Off we go:

Let's imagine this for a second: You are an author who self-publishes and your new book has sold a few copies to friends and family, but gotten no major press. Suddenly Oprah calls and wants you for an interview. It turns out she loved the book.You're excited.

Your spot kills, you're going to sell hundreds of thousands of these books!

Oprah asks where can people buy the book and you say:

"Send me a letter with a check for $29.95 and I will wait two weeks for the check to clear. Afterwards I will ship you your book COD. If you order now I should have it to you in eight weeks."

Your potential best seller is not a best seller anymore.

This phenomenon from a horse racing perspective was explored a little bit in HRU this week in "What Tim Tebow has that Zenyatta Doesn't". (opens in a pdf, page 8)

Give it a read if you'd like, and let me know what you think.

SC is promoting a free past performance and picks page, trying to get harness racing in Canada to stop the downward handle spiral YOY. On Wednesday the picks page had a $31 winner, which was sweet for those who played along. These things are always a good idea.

In HRU this Friday as well, Bill Finley reports on Brian Sears. It appears he is not going to race much at all at the Meadowlands (if we read between the lines). He was one of the few who generally gave the Big M a shot the past couple of years. I guess we can't blame him; when $40,000 Opens (where he can get put down on a nice 8-5 shot) are ruling the roost at Yonkers, it's green.

Speaking of the Meadowlands, VFTRG tells horsemen to "capitulate" today. I tend to agree. This chapter is already been written in the state house.

I missed this piece from Hoofbeats this past summer on harness racing, takeout and pool size. The pool size points are good - and it's one of the reasons the USTA strategic thigamjig was announced. We in harness racing have several things against us and pool size is one of the big ones. Regardless, it was a good article.

One of the good guys in our sport lost his wife this week. Rheal Bourgeois' wife Liz has passed on. You can see from the number of comments how respected they both are. I'm sorry for your loss Rheal and family.