Happy Holidays,Here's Some Free Stuff!
Well, it's about that time of year when we start wishing everybody Happy Holidays. A little early for Merry Christmas, particularly if you celebrate Christmas, because these days there are more ways to piss people off than just breathing. Apparently, even wishing somebody a nice day can get you sideways with the wrong crowd.
But I have figured out something we can all agree on. Free shit.
That's right. Everybody loves free shit. You give people something for free, and they'll come back for more. It's practically the American way.
Well, Racingwithbruno, in partnership with the Kentucky Thoroughbred Association, has been giving away free shit for years. Our Video Workout Library is FREE. If you haven't figured that out by now, you must be living in one of them caves in Afghanistan. And I would imagine stringing Christmas lights around a cave is a real son of a bitch, not to mention getting Wi-Fi installed. But I digress.
Putting the stupid humor aside for a minute, we offer a Video Workout Library where our staff collects, identifies, and organizes workouts in an easy-to-follow format. We generate approximately 250,000 views a year, and some of you already frequent the site. So do professionals, including the Daily Racing Form. I'm not entirely sure those two groups belong in the same sentence, but there they are, using our videos. Trainers, handicappers, owners, and just about anybody with an interest in looking at horses can use the service. If I may add if you don't see your horse in question come back and check a little later, ..... you might be surprised. Too many handicappers have become lazy, they don't see something and walk away. Don't be a dum-dum.....give it a chance.
And it's FREE, thanks to the Kentucky Thoroughbred Association and the Kentucky Development Fund.
No sign-up. No login. No paywall. No credit card. You don't even have to pretend you're interested in our newsletter to get through the front door.
Now, before everybody starts firing off emails about why we don't have every horse that worked on every morning, let me offer a little education.
We update horses every single day. More often than not, we'll identify horses after the fact and go back to add their works to the site. The videos are organized by date, but you can also search by horse name and trainer.
I occasionally receive emails from folks who apparently believe every horse should be available from every morning work. I admire the optimism. I really do. But the task is damn near impossible.
Horses don't work like they're boarding Noah's Ark. They don't come out two at a time, neatly organized, with a little identification card hanging around their necks. Hello my name is......this isn't Japan. Most of them work in clusters, often simultaneously, or within seconds of one another, on a freshly manicured track.
Take a Saturday morning at Churchill Downs. You can have approximately 245 works. If weather has pushed things back a day or two, that number can climb to 300 horses in a four-hour window. That's roughly 75 horses an hour, coming through in a relatively small window of time. Even with a two-man crew, horses are going to trickle through, overlap, and occasionally disappear into the great unknown.
"Well, Bruno, hire more people."
I actually had one gentleman offer that brilliant suggestion. When I asked if I could send him the bill for the additional hours, he suddenly developed a severe case of laryngitis. Nothing. Crickets. I thought I heard one of them chirping the national anthem.
Here's the thing. We work within a budget, and Churchill Downs isn't the only place we cover. We also have crews at Turfway, Oaklawn, Keeneland and soon enough at Fair Grounds. There are only so many hours in a morning, and only so many people who can do this work properly.
And we haven't even gotten to the business of how we identify horses.
No, the trainers aren't sending us a nice little list every morning with the names of every horse coming onto the track. And even if they did, we'd still need the identifying markings to determine which horse is which. That's where things get interesting.
Some folks don't seem to understand that identifying a horse isn't simply a matter of looking at a horse and announcing its name like you're calling contestants on The Price Is Right. Hey
'Secretariat' come on down.....
Most barns aren't particularly interested in making that information readily available. They guard it like it's classified national security material. I once sent a trainer a video of one of his own horses, and his response wasn't "Thank you." No, he wanted to know, "How do you know my horses?"
Well, hell, I don't know. Maybe we have a crystal ball in the office. Maybe somebody slipped us the launch codes. Or maybe, just maybe, we actually do the work.
Folks, Racingwithbruno is a team. It isn't one guy sitting behind a computer drinking coffee and randomly guessing which horse is coming down the stretch.
My daughter and her husband work their asses off helping us compile the data. One of the most painstaking parts of the operation is maintaining our identification database. We collect markings, individual identifying characteristics, and trainer information for horses at training facilities throughout the United States.
We call it our Master Key.
And we update that thing every single day. By hand.
Yes, I realize there might be easier ways to accomplish some of this. But in an industry where information is treated like somebody's family recipe for barbecue sauce, getting accurate data isn't exactly a walk in the park. It's difficult enough to get a workout tab beyond what's publicly posted through Equibase.
This isn't a paint-by-numbers coloring book, folks.
There are only two people on our team who can consistently identify horses at the level required for this operation: Amy Kearns and me. And if you think identifying 200 workout tabs or handling 125 videos in a day is something anybody can walk in and do, I would encourage you to give it a whirl.
You'll discover pretty quickly that looking at horses and actually identifying horses are two entirely different occupations.
Of course, I'm well aware that social media has produced an extraordinary number of experts. We've got people who can identify the unknown soldier, locate Amelia Earhart, Fred Noonan, and the final resting place of that Lockheed Electra, and probably tell you what happened to Jimmy Hoffa before breakfast.
Everybody is a genius in their own mind. Everybody knows how to do everything better. Everybody has a solution.
Right up until the moment they're asked to actually do it.
Then the room gets awfully quiet.
We do it. That's the difference.
Now, where do you find these libraries?
And we're continuing to expand. This winter we're looking at covering workouts at Turfway, Keeneland, Oaklawn, and Fair Grounds. We're going to do everything we can to put more information in front of horseplayers, owners, trainers, and racing enthusiasts.
The Video Library is also available on our Brunowiththeworks.com
So, as we head into the holiday season, here's my annual reminder that you don't have to spend a dime to use one of the resources we've worked awfully hard to put together.
Racingwithbruno and the Kentucky Thoroughbred Association bring you the Video Workout Library free of charge.
No registration. No login. No paywall. Just horses, workouts, and information.
The Video Libraries are also available at Keeneland.com for Kentucky Works
And are available at Oaklawn Parks website
And if you're still living in a cave somewhere in Afghanistan, don't worry. We've got you covered, too.
Although you might want to check with your landlord about that Wi-Fi situation.
Happy Holidays, everybody. And enjoy the free shit.
