i created this corner of the internet in January of 2014 to keep myself plugged into horse racing once the fall meet at Hawthorne ended, during the seven and a half weeks before the next season started. yes, even in 2014 racing started back up in February in Chicago. i created this to be about horse racing, and only horse racing.

when i created it, i knew very little about the sport. i was teaching myself how to read the program, and still in the process of making sense of all those little numbers squenched into the smallest space possible. i wrote my way through my confusion, into a new obsession.

there is little inevitable in my life, but one of those constants is my inability to build lasting walls to separate the aspects of my life. the personal becomes the professional, or the other way around. interests overlap, mingle, make arbitrary boundaries obsolete. just as physical systems tend toward entropy, so it goes with the places my mind decides to bounce. disorder reigns sooner or later.

almost nine years after i carved out this corner of the internet, this becomes no exception.

i hated that i wasn’t writing here much anymore, and i finally figured out why, or at least why for now. i had begun to see this as a mostly-impersonal place for mostly-impersonal horse racing ideas, and nothing more.

my horse racing life is nothing i could have ever imagined in January of 2014. back then, i needed a dedicated place to make sense of the sport. as i kept coming to the track and kept writing about horse racing, i needed a place that was only for that.

i’ve been working in horse racing for five and a half years now. most of the writing i do about horse racing comes in the scope of my jobs. horse racing used to be the thing i do in my spare time. now, i still watch racing and go through some pedigree rabbit holes in my spare time, but writing about the sport isn’t what i spend all of my spare time the way it was when my working hours were not all about horse racing. i’ve always been a person who liked some variety, and writing about horse racing professionally has, in a sense, opened up time and mental space to do other things as well.

and yet, i’d like a place to write about…things. perhaps, about horse racing. perhaps, about other things that i want to share with people instead of squirreling away in a journal, destined to gather dust until whoever goes through my stuff after i die either reads it or sets it on fire. definitely, in a longer and less ethereal form than Facebook or my increasingly precarious internet home, Twitter. and i’ve caught myself deliberately choosing to do other things than write at all. part of it has been burnout. part of it has been that there wasn’t a place i was happy to do it.

absurd, since this was right here all along.

i thought on and off of starting somewhere else, but why do that? i love what i’ve written here over the years. it’s writing that taught me a lot, and in many cases, writing i’m still elated to share. if i can evolve over the years, why can’t my home on the internet?

this is just to say…no, nothing about plums in an icebox, though that remains one of my favourite poems-turned-internet-memes. no, this is just to say that this site belongs to me, and i can broaden its purpose if that makes me happy. right now, i think it does.

In 2016 and 2017, I wrote a newsletter called The Career Maiden. In May of 2017,

I resurrected it today. In my latest issue, I discuss my thoughts about both the hiatus and my recent writing life more broadly. And then, just as I always did, I share some links to my writing, some links to thinks I’ve enjoyed reading recently, and perhaps the most epic horse nose I’ve ever shared in one of my newsletters.

If you’d like to hear from me in your inbox every so often, you can subscribe here.

For the first few weeks of the NTRA three-year-old poll, Classic Empire sat atop.  The first ballot came before the Holy Bull.  After his flat third the Holy Bull, most voters dropped him from the top slot…but I kept him on top.  Yes, Irish War Cry was sharp in victory, and McCraken picked right up where he left off when he won the Sam Davis.  Even with these talented contenders, Classic Empire’s two-year-old year was so good that he deserved a mulligan.

But, word came out within the last week that his foot abscess hadn’t healed up yet, and Classic Empire would miss the Fountain of Youth as a result.

Was I willing to give him another one?  I had to sleep on it.

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Three-year-old horses get to go to the Kentucky Derby if they’re good enough.

I don’t know what three-year-old blogs get to do, other than continue to take up space on the Internet.  This is as good a time as any to find out, though, since Blinkers Off turns three today!

To all of you who have been reading my previews, my recaps, my pieces about Curlin babies, my random asides…thank you so much.

On a writing front, the previous year has featured some change and a lot of adventure.

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If you are reading this, thank you.

If you have read Blinkers Off, Chicago Railbird, Picks and Ponderings, or any of my other writing over the last two years, thank you.

Blinkers Off turns two today, and that would never have happened without you.

I said a lot when this little corner of the Internet turned a year old, and all of that stands.  It has been another year of writing, learning, and getting even more deeply into horse racing.

It has also been a year of equine-related adventures, both in Chicago and farther afield.

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Last year, I was just starting to write a few things about horse racing.  My Twitter account had become mostly racing chatter, but sometimes that felt short.  I had tried my hand at writing a few longer things, and wondered if it would be something that I would enjoy doing on a regular basis.  I figured I should do something to make sure I stayed on top of horse racing, with Hawthorne having gone quiet just before New Year’s.

A year ago today, I threw a couple of Palace Malice videos up on here and declared that I was starting a horse racing blog.  I was petrified that I would not have enough to write about to keep it regularly updated, but that worry quickly proved unfounded.

A year later, starting Blinkers Off ranks as one of the best decisions I have ever made.

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