Delivery of news and information has come a long way since cave painting. Daily newspapers have been around since the 1600s. BloodHorse, which began in 1916 as the monthly publication The Thoroughbred Horse founded by the Kentucky Thoroughbred Horse Association, switched to a weekly publication in May 1929. That was in a time when "live" sporting results came via telegraph and were read aloud at Lexington's old Phoenix Hotel.
BloodHorse announces a bold step forward today: The weekly print publication will return to its roots, and a monthly print format, for April 2021 (our last weekly edition will be dated March 27, 2021). That's not the only announcement: additional content in the form of BloodHorse + will be available for subscribers.
Of course today we do a lot more than publish, print, and mail a weekly news magazine. BloodHorse.com is a 24/7 endeavor, bringing up-to-the minute news, race results, sire lists, and auction data, that can be consumed in a myriad of ways. BloodHorse Daily offers a one-a-day dose of information and analysis to more than 20,000 subscribers. The print edition and online version of the Stallion Register, along with the Global Stallions app, will remain vital tools for assessing the quality and value of bloodstock, both nationally and internationally.
The new monthly format will allow us to stretch our legs a bit and dive deeper into the issues, people, and horses that make up the fascinating business of Thoroughbred breeding and sales, and the exciting sport of Thoroughbred racing.
And with the shift, we'll soon introduce BloodHorse + to subscribers, which will provide additional video, data, and pedigree information for our voracious audience. We think you will find BloodHorse + a "must read" component to our growing list of products.
We're proud of our weekly run with BloodHorse as a print product, but as mentioned, delivery of information has come much more mobile through the decades. Once a mailbox and newsstand product only, BloodHorse advanced a daily product, via facsimile (better known as a fax machine) in the mid 1980s and by 1995 we were an industry front-runner with Blood-Horse Interactive, which became BloodHorse.com.
The first weekly edition of the printed The Blood-Horse was dated "Week Ending May 11, 1929" and featured Blue Larkspur, Earl Pool up, on the cover. Col. E.R. Bradley's Blue Larkspur upended Clyde Van Dusen at Lexington's Kentucky Association track (Keeneland wouldn't open for another seven years) in a prep for the May 18 Kentucky Derby.
"WE ISSUE EACH MONDAY" read the opening line of that issue of The Blood-Horse. We continue to publish on Mondays in 2021.
Editor and publisher Thomas Cromwell continued:
"About this time last year we told our readers that, if and when we could see our way clear to do so, we would make publication of this journal more frequently than monthly. We expressed then the hope that eventually we could issue it weekly.
"In The Blood-Horse for April we announced as a step in that direction that beginning May 6, we would put out each week a 'Monday Letter' in printed form, which would contain information of great value to all who are interested in the Thoroughbred horse."
Later in that first issue Cromwell noted:
"So here it is, The Blood-Horse in its first appearance as a weekly publication. We hope you will like it, and that it will ever merit your patronage, both as a subscriber and advertiser, and that you will tell your friends about it, to the end that it may continue to grow and prosper."
The publication has grown and prospered since spring 1929, and look what it's gone through: depressions, recessions, world wars, and pandemics. It has ebbed and flowed as the Thoroughbred industry, from a foal crop of 4,903 in 1929, to a high of 51,296 in 1986, to a foal crop today of some 18,950 for 2020.
You, the reader and advertiser, have been here for us, and we've been here for you...and will continue to do so in an hourly, daily, and now monthly touch. We look forward to continuing to serve your Thoroughbred breeding and racing needs and are excited about the prospects ahead.
