What's all this then?
Left Coast Racing (www.leftcoastracing.com) is a blog dedicated to commentary and opinions about Thoroughbred racing in Vancouver and around the world. It is maintained by me, Erwin Wodarczak, based in Vancouver, Canada.
Here at Left Coast Racing I write about my experiences at my local track, Hastings Racecourse ; my opinions of the horses who run there; my attempts at handicapping; and my perspectives on racing around the world — the Triple Crown, the Breeder’s Cup, and others.
I’m also interested in the history of horse racing, so I’ll occasionally take a look back at horses, races, and racing personalities of the past.
One thing I am concerned about as a racing fan is the over-emphasis (in my opinion) on speed and precocity, by breeders and owners alike, at the expense of stamina and durability. To that end I maintain the “Stayers’ Watch”: regular reports on North American stayers’ races (defined as races run on dirt, turf, or synthetic surfaces over a distance of 1 1/2 miles or more), and the horses that run in them. I have also inaugurated the “Unofficial Champion Stayer Award”, to be awarded annually to the horse whose performances in North America in stayers’ races are deemed to be superior to its rivals.
Finally, I’ve started building a modest collection of books on horse racing, so I’ll occasionally post book reviews.
House Rules
Short version: Comments that suck will be deleted — don’t suck (tip o’ the hat to djblurb).
Long version: I welcome your comments — but keep it civil. Flames, trolls, and otherwise obnoxious comments will be deleted. Continuing violation of this most simple rule will get you blocked from commenting.
Keep it on-topic. At this point, if comments and discussion stray from the particular subject of the original post, I’m prepared to let it go — as long as it can be related back to the more general subject of horse racing. I reserve the right to change this policy if/when it doesn’t work.
I am responsible for what I write, but not what you write. In other words, any comments on this site not written the administrator of Left Coast Racing (me) are the opinions of the people who comment, not necessarily the opinion of Left Coast Racing, and Left Coast Racing can not and will not be held responsible for the content therein.
You can contact me directly at e[HYPHEN]man[AT]leftcoastracing[DOT]com. Of course it’s not a live link — I don’t want spam filling my mailbox.
Colophon
The text in Left Coast Racing is set in Verdana — if your computer or browser doesn’t support that font, the sans-serif fonts Lucida Grande, Tahoma, or Helvetica are offered as alternatives. Headers are set in Georgia (alternate, Times or your default serif).
Left Coast Racing is maintained using Textpattern. This is the first time I’ve used a content management system — all my previous website projects have been hand-coded. So far, Textpattern is easy and almost fun to use — dare I say, downright nifty.
The site is hosted by HostPapa — cheap, reliable, and "green".
Until May 2008 this site was maintained using a Dell Pentium III. Since then I have been using an iMac (2 GHz, Intel Core 2 Duo, 20-inch display) — I have entered Steve Jobs’ reality-distortion field....
