I'm not sure what percentage of horseplayers view horse racing forums on the internet. One thing is for sure, horse racing forums have now become a legitimate place for one to voice their opinion. With racing declining, more and more horsemen and racing execs are beginning to take notice, and believe it or not, some are even listening.
So here are the main horse racing forums:
PACE ADVANTAGE
Easily the number one horse racing forum on the internet. Pace Advantage has over 13000 members, and is viewed by hundreds of people at any given time. It attracts a vast array of posters from computer program handicappers to trainers to racing execs to ADW owners.
HANA (Horseplayers Association of North America) was started by Pace Advantage Forum members who joined together to try to give horseplayers a seat at the table.
The handicappers on Pace Advantage are the most sophisticated anywhere on the internet collectively. A newbie might get intimidated when viewing some of the systems and statistics that are mentioned in quite a few of the threads.
Sometimes, the commenters at each others throats. But a little drama makes it more entertaining.
Thoroughbred Champions
Kind of Pace Advantage lite. Again, a pretty sophisticated group of members who are pretty inquisitive and knowledgeable. The crowd is less contentious to one another over there than at Pace Advantage.
Trackchampions.com
The forum has interesting threads, but there just doesn't seem to be enough active commenters. They do seem to get current horse racing news stories as quickly as anyone else if not faster in some cases.
Kind of a clique crowd that is often on each others cases, a little too much in some instances.
The Paulick Report
Not a forum by definition. The Paulick Report has tremendous readership, and attracts some big names in horse racing to comment on in house stories. The fact that comments can be made quickly without being subject to moderation, gives it the feel of a high quality horse racing forum (though some comments are later deleted if they are too offensive).
Del Mar Forum
The least respected horse racing forum on the internet, though the moderators there have tried to fix that recently. It is a breeding ground for California horsemen and simple fans. It is hard to learn anything of substance from that forum whatsoever, and if you are pro horseplayer, posting there will only lead to frustration.
Doesn't have much of a following either.
Barn To Wire Forum
Finally, a forum that I'm not a member of. This one is regional, based in Chicago. The commenters seem to be well mannered and bright. But there is a definite lack of activity on that board that might have to do with their focus.
Horseplop.com
I just recently became a member there (though they rejected me three times as Cangamble). This is the Wild West of horse racing forums. Mainly focused on harness racing, the crowd there is a cross between Andrew Dice Clay and Don Rickles.
Some of the crudest smilies I've seen on the internet, and swear words don't seem to get deleted either.
Harnessphere
This is a genuine harness racing forum. Pretty respectful bunch. You can see the frustrations faced by the members, who seem to be a mix of horsemen and players, as their game struggles to survive.
It isn't very active, so it is easy to miss a few days there and catch up.
Thoroughbrednet.us
Definitely more fan based with a focus on upcoming major Stake races.
TVG Community
From what I've seen so far, they are more fans there than handicappers/insiders/horsemen. The level of sophistication there is pale in comparison to Pace Advantage for example. Not the place for me.
10 comments:
Derbytrail?
All forums have their pros and cons at this time. Some are on the upswing but most forums have lowered their standards from yesteryear - and it shows.
Having been on horse racing forums since 1996, I have seen the growth and demise of various horse racing fan forums. The good, the bad and the ugly.
For a future post I was thinking about the need for forum owners to modernize their software and integrate some of the better blogging content out there in the blogosphere.
I think horse racing fan forums have failed miserably in that area and have lost (and will continue to lose) many good posters.
I do believe many of the current wave of bloggers were more active on horse racing forums in the past but have chosen to refocus their time and efforts.
Right now we're seeing more vocal fan forum content than ever before, perhaps due to the sometimes critical blogging content that is now produced by independent bloggers. Hopefully horse racing will be better off for it. The horse racing customer's voice - an integral part of the equatiom largely ignored in recent decades.
Derbytrail doesn't seem to be that active.
TKS, I've been a horse racing member for a few years now. Perhaps, some of the older forum members have given up on horse racing altogether.
I think that has racing execs and marketers start looking for answers in order to keep their jobs, the relevance of forums is at a high right now.
Cangamble wrote:
Perhaps, some of the older forum members have given up on horse racing altogether.
____________________
Or perhaps they have simply changed their forum member names in order to be elusive and rambunctious. ;-)
I love this comment:
"legitimate place for one to voice their opinion."
Are you kidding me? Legitimate.....Too funny using the word legitimate and forum in the same sentence.
My experience has been that racing execs don't follow these forums because too much of the "he said - she said" and "because it is written it must be true" is happening.
Basically comments on these forums are taken with less than a grain of salt. The forum provides a place for people to vent and a place where nobody lets the truth get in the way of a good post and subsequent following.
Derbytrail isnt that active?
Threads: 31,525, Posts: 605,241, Members: 1,445, Active Members: 905
No Exec should be worried about what people are saying on any internet forum. The number of people on any forum are a very minute number in the grand scheme of things.
Take PA for example, all that board is, is one big circle jerk. It is a bunch of whinny babies that have nothing better to do than spend their days posting there. It seems to me that it is a bunch of grown men slurping each other. Good for a few ego's not much else. And that 'off topic' section is scary, to say the least. A bunch of old racist rednecks who just learned how to use a computer.
If I was a new fan and stumbled upon that site looking for info. Horse racing fans would scare me.
Pace Advantage Forum has been a hoot lately. I think Mike has finally gone over the edge. To think zenyatta can actually get under somebodies skin so hard and so easily...
and you think executives anywhere should take these forums seriously?
Racing Forum
How much of the infield had to be dug up from all the oil polluting the soil? Did the EPA get involved ?
I love forums on horse racing for me to learn new things and for me to share all the horse racing tips to the people interacting in the forum.
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