Take Two

Last week, we at the NTRA were excitedly getting ready for our first-ever NTRA Live Webcast, featuring live video streaming of Rachel Alexandra’s and Zenyatta’s comeback races. The end result was a disappointment to many—and I’m not referring to Rachel Alexandra’s unexpected defeat.
 
The demand to see these races on ntra.com last Saturday was sufficient to nearly crash our site.  The demand, itself, was not unexpected—it was the inability of our site to handle that level of demand that was where we had miscalculated.
 
I was not a pleasant person to be around at 6pm last Saturday—and for most of the three days thereafter, for that matter.  Like many of you, I was disappointed that I didn’t get to see the races like I was promised, but what made matters infinitely worse was that I felt we had let so many of our most passionate racing fans down.
 
Though I was not among the lucky group, a small percentage of those who came to our site last Saturday DID get to view the Webcast, ably hosted by Randy Moss.  
 
This Saturday at 6:00 pm ET, we’re going to try and get things right as we host another NTRA Live Webcast, featuring live video of the Florida Derby. I’ve been told that last week’s errors have been fully corrected, but I’ve insisted that our tech guys have a mechanism in place whereby fans will be automatically diverted from our site to a different one containing the live Florida Derby video should anything unforeseen go awry.  This week I prefer to wear a belt AND a pair of suspenders.
 
Enjoy the Florida Derby. The large, competitive field of 11 should make for a great betting race.  And when it’s done, let me know what you thought of the Webcast.