NEWSLETTERS

Newsletter dated February 1, 2006

NTWA Newsletter from President Gary West
Download a PDF version of this newsletter.

Dan Liebman has resigned his position as secretary and treasurer of the NTWA and Charitable Foundation. 

Explaining that his responsibilities had grown at The Blood-Horse, Dan said he no longer had the time or energy he needed if he were to continue his NTWA work. In a letter, he said: "I have enjoyed my time as an officer of the NTWA and hope my efforts have made it a better and stronger professional organization. I promise to continue as an involved member, helping the group any way I can."

Dan had been the secretary and treasurer since the death of Jim Bolus in 1997. And, of course, the organization is much better off because of Dan's service, as are all the turf writers. I especially am grateful for Dan's kind assistance. Over the past year and a half, whenever I felt as if I were stumbling in the dark, Dan calmly whipped out a flashlight to show the way.

But Dan didn't leave without giving us, in characteristic fashion, one final assist. He highly recommended Jill Williams to fill his position. And with a unanimous vote, the board followed his recommendation. Jill will complete Dan's term, which ends in May.

Jill seems to be very enthusiastic about the position and about working with the turf writers. She has indicated she would be willing to accept a regular term as secretary-treasurer. And between now and the annual Derby meeting, I'll make a special effort not to do anything that might dissuade her.

Jill has lived in Lexington for nearly 10 years. She and her husband have two daughters, as well as two broodmares. A freelancer, Jill has worked for The Blood-Horse as well as the Bell Group. For the last five years, she has helped Dan on the annual NTWA dinner program. 

DUES

Here's a reminder that many of us still need to pay the annual dues of $40 by March 15. Send the payment to Jill. With that in mind, here's Jill's address:

3920 Grassy Creek Dr.
Lexington, Ky. 40514

and her email address:

jill@turfwriters.org


THE CHARITABLE FOUNDATION

Dan reports that the board of the NTWA Charitable Foundation recently met via a conference call, with all officers and members present. The board voted to fill Tom Keyser's spot with Ed DeRosa. Tom is no longer a member of the NTWA.
The board approved the recommendations of the NTWA members at the annual Breeders' Cup meeting, dedicating $5,000 to the Ben Norby Fund; $1,000 to the Miami project; and $1,000 to charities chosen by the award winners and emcee Dave Johnson. Both Pete Pedersen and Jay Privman chose the California Thoroughbred Horsemen's Foundation. Nick Zito chose the Lost and Found Horse Rescue. And Dave chose the Racehorse Adoption Program.

ELECTIONS

The Derby meeting will be an especially important one. Members will be asked to vote not only for secretary-treasurer, but also for vice president and president. My term as president ends in May, as does Jay Hovdey's as vice president. Moreover, the terms of board members Jennie Rees, Pohla Smith and Rick Snider all end.

I urge those of you who are interested to give some thought to becoming involved by running for one of the open positions.

SHRINKING

As many of you are aware, NTWA members Bill Christine and Ron Indrisano recently accepted buyouts from their newspapers and are no longer covering horse racing. Jennie has spoken with both and offers this report:

Long-time racing writers Bill Christine of the Los Angeles Times and Ron Indrisano of the Boston Globe in November accepted buyouts from their employers. Both hope to keep their hand in racing journalism. Because of vacations, etc, Bill and Ronnie were through writing virtually from the time they took the buyout.

The Globe does not plan to have a horse racing writer. Ronnie told me that if the paper had continued the beat, he would not have left, but that daily racing coverage is ending. It is only through Ronnie's efforts that the Globe will continue entries and results from Suffolk Downs, which it had planned to drop while also ending entries and results from greyhound and harness tracks.

Bill reports the Times plans to hire a replacement, but clearly the beat is not what it used to be at that paper, which has had massive cutbacks, as have a lot of daily papers.

This comes in the wake of Eddie Gray taking a buyout from the Boston Herald, which did not replace him; the Dallas Morning News unceremoniously laying off then-NTWA vice president Gary West the day of entries for the Breeders' Cup at Lone Star; and Tom Keyser leaving the Baltimore Sun, which went in-house for a replacement and no longer considers horse racing a full-time assignment. Tom is now a features writer with the Albany (NY) Times-Union. When NTWA past president Mike Kane, sports columnist and racing writer for the Daily Gazette, left the paper last year for the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, that upstate New York paper did not replace him and - while Phil Janack replaces Mike as racing writer - has scaled back their racing coverage, which had devoted as many column inches to the sport as any paper in America.

In a recent conversation, Los Angeles Daily News sports columnist and NTWA board member Kevin Modesti made the very good suggestion that the NTWA should be thinking of ways (and carrying them out) to encourage newspapers and sports writers to cover horse racing. Churchill Downs used to have the college sports writers seminar opening weekend of the spring meet in Louisville that was critically acclaimed. Last year Churchill dropped it because of a similar seminar that the then-CDI-owned Hollywood Park and the Los Angeles Times sponsored, with Churchill continuing a racing photography seminar for college students instead. The HP-LA Times seminar would now seem dead.

Jennie and Kevin make a good point. Newspapers everywhere seem to be cutting back their coverage of horse racing. This has become an enormous problem for the sport, which I think, must share the responsibility for its creation. And it has become a major problem for turf writers. Just think for a moment: How many full-time turf writers are working today for major newspapers? Not many.
Anyway, give this problem some consideration. How can we encourage coverage of the sport?

SCHOLARSHIP UPDATE

All the papers are signed and the deal done. The NTWA-Youbet Scholarship is a reality, administered by The Race For Education Foundation. As part of the agreement, some NTWA members will have to be involved in the selection process. If you're interested in doing that, contact me. 

ECLIPSED

Some people have asked how a horse can be among the three finalists but not among the top three in voting. Well, the voting tabulation is for first-place votes, while the top-three determines the finalists.

Perhaps the Eclipse steering committee can address that discrepancy. The problem, of course, is that if first-place votes are used to determine the finalists then in some cases there might be only one finalist.

Click here to download a PDF version of this newsletter.