GOOD NEWS FRIDAY sponsored by Liberation Farm: A BELATED ‘THANKS’GIVING
By Ray Paulick
Eighteen months ago I was looking for an outlet. Not one of the electrical variety, but a place where I could plug in and distribute whatever knowledge, insights and analysis I had accumulated over more than a quarter-century covering the Thoroughbred industry at Daily Racing Form, Thoroughbred Times, the short-lived Racing Times and Blood-Horse Publications. The phone wasn’t ringing off the hook and the inbox was far from overflowing, but I felt I had more to learn in this industry, and perhaps more to give.
The idea for a website was certainly not a revolutionary one. Existing publications all had brand extensions on the Internet and dozens of individuals, including some out-of-work journalists like me, had blogs, some of them very good. There were a couple of places you could go to find daily links to published articles about information around the racing world.
But I felt something was missing, and so the Paulick Report was created. It was my hope that individuals from throughout the Thoroughbred racing and breeding community would gather here each day, get the latest and most relevant news and analysis from a unique and independent perspective, and share their thoughts with others. I figured it was a longshot at best to survive, but I’ve never been afraid of a challenge. The last 18 months, have been incredibly challenging and busy—in a good sort of way—and that challenge has yielded emotions ranging from fear to exhilaration.
But as I sit on this Thanksgiving holiday in a Tokyo hotel room, thousands of miles away from home and family, and reflect back, the overwhelming feeling is one of gratitude. And I guess that’s what the spirit of Thanksgiving is all about. The launch of the Paulick Report in June 2008 was more than the creation of a website, but a generous act of faith from family, friends, associates and people I’ve never met, willing to give a second or third chance to someone who had no real right to ask for one.
Those who encouraged me to continue speaking out on this industry and its variety of challenging issues did more for me than you’ll ever know. Donors to the early “pledge drives” and businesses within the advertising community provided the funding to give this upstart online publication a legitimate chance to stand on its own legs, and allow me to retain a one-person staff in the indefatigable and creative Brad Cummings.
But perhaps the biggest thanks go to some of those individuals and industry organizations we’ve targeted for criticism. The easiest thing for them to do would have been to dismiss the commentaries as unfair, unwarranted or misguided—and I’ll be the first to say that not every shot was perfectly fired. However, many recipients accepted the observations and suggestions in the spirit for which they were written, performed self evaluations and in some cases took what I believe are positive steps.
You may not always agree with what you find here at the Paulick Report. I’d worry about you if you did. But I hope you will agree that the content and the dialogue created here is healthy for an industry that has, for far too long, not been amenable to public debate or new ideas.
Thanks for caring about this industry, for reading what has been said here over the past 18 months, and for sharing your thoughts on the issues that matter.
Copyright © 2009, The Paulick Report
Sign up for our Email Flashes to get the latest news, analysis and commentary from Ray Paulick
Liberation Farm celebrates the many horsemen and horsewomen who strive each day to make things better for horses and those who work with them. To learn more about Liberation Farm, click here.
Tags: blood-horse publications, Brad Cummings, daily racing form, Good News Friday, liberation farm, Paulick Report, racing times, Ray Paulick, Thanksgiving, thoroughbred times, tokyo
November 27th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Thank you!
November 27th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
This is my favorite site on the net
Thank you for letting me have a voice in the sport I love.
November 27th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
And you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. Thanks for your honest and open discussion.
November 27th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Ray
Have both enjoyed reading and the respondents (well not all) and posting. Keep up the good work
November 27th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Ray– The overall horse industty benefits from your Blogs. I don’t necessarily agree with all of them, but do with many of them, and always enjoy your perspective and crisp commentary.
November 27th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
You’re doing a fantastic job and I check in every day.Yours is one of the few racing sites that know horses exist around the world, not just in the United States. Long live the Paulick Report!
November 27th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Keep on running, don´t give up…. the track is rough but you are not alone.
November 27th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
Kudos, Ray. You’ve already done more for this industry than you’ll ever know, & I don’t expect your impact or relevance to diminish anytime soon. The importance of this website to our industry is monumental. Thank God for the United States of America. Thank God we live in a country in which this website may not only exist, but thrive!
November 27th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
This site has been among my favorites since its launch, Ray, and I consider myself a faithful reader. Your digging into and exposing some of the issues of the industry that are often glossed over on other sites is very educational for someone not steeped in racing history as myself, so I consider this another valuable learning tool as I try to figureit all out. Plus, humor is alive and well here - another good thing. Thank you!
November 27th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
Thank you for the information on the King of Sports, not the sport of Kings
November 27th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
Try as I feebly might at times, I cannot say it better than Shakespeare.
“I can no other answer make, but, thanks, and thanks.”
November 27th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
I second all that has been said before.
November 27th, 2009 at 8:04 pm
now what we need in the west is a new owner of Santa Anita and Golden Gate.
We cant end up with the same owner, who has done nothing to change the way we
do business, and run it like a people business. this is not thh 1970s.
there is alot of competition and we need to run these tracks in a friendlier way.
after all the customer is the boss. the owners have lost sight of that and think
its all about them and their employees.
the unions are killing the business. there are so many unions, you cant even count them
.
where is the customers union. well its gone on strike, and not many are coming back.
November 27th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
Is the lovely lady holding a roasted ostrich? If so, it’s one less to slow down change in the biz.
November 27th, 2009 at 11:06 pm
Yours is a much needed and much valued voice. Thank you, and keep going.
November 28th, 2009 at 1:44 am
Hi everyone, I figured I would share a late Black Friday gift of some good information I found. Free one way backlinks for your blog. I have been taking advantage of this this for my websites and it absolutely works great! Click my name to see what I mean.
November 28th, 2009 at 2:38 am
Ray and Brad, I am late to the party as I only found your website 3 months ago. You guys do a great job.
November 28th, 2009 at 7:37 am
You are a valuable source of information and dialogue. It’s in the industry’s best interest to at least note what appears on these pages
November 28th, 2009 at 9:31 am
WELL DONE
November 28th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Happy Thanksgiving, Ray and Brad (staff?)!
I’m thankful that there is a venue to exchange opinions, ideas and perspectives of the industry of racing, with every conceivable level of player or fan that this game provides.
Now, if we can only get a National Commissioner/organization (sorry NTRA/Waldrop…you guys are nothing but a stroke machine for the status quo and/or highly overpaid gloss over PR machine for same without the business savy to unify effectively this game throughout) with teeth to make the game better.
November 28th, 2009 at 9:21 pm
Ray, you’re going ESPN (”a little bit…kind of…sort of…”) on us:
“And I guess that’s what the spirit of Thanksgiving is all about.”
Stand far away from (and continue to define yourself by the distance between yourself and) our worthless media equivocators.
Make that a definitive statement!
Now, about that drive home…there’s a great little race track in the Solomon Islands…