Last week I got on my high horse

(look, when you have two of the biggest entities in horse racing as clients, the puns are unavoidable. Actually, it puzzles me why the horse racing industry has such poor advertising. The ad industry lingo is built for horse racing: “down the wire”, “it’s a safe bet”, “on the fast track” , “front runner”, “the stakes are high”, “fast out of the gate”, “my client just turned me into a gelding”. Anyways, now I’m beating a dead horse.) and talked about TVG’s successful 1st Quarter.

Big Brown will make his bid for the Triple Crown at Belmont Park on Saturday, June 7 during the Belmont Stakes. You’ll hear this another 100 times in the next two weeks: No horse has won the Triple Crown in 30 years since Affirmed in 1978.

We have been sitting around for a few weeks waiting to see if this would be the magical year. Even though we knew the race would be June 7, we could not really proceed because we didn’t know what the story would be–or, if there was even going to be story. Last year, it was not a big story. This year, it’s on.

TVG has the wagering rights for the Belmont Stakes, so it is always a big deal. Now, because the race is going to get national headlines in every newspaper in the country, it’s a really really big deal. And, we are proud to be a part of it. Our team is excited and ready to crank out a campaign in very short notice. We expect a slew (see, another pun, more subtle though) of deliverables to online and print media nationwide. The creatives are pumped, the account team is pumped, and the production/ traffic team…I’ll need to check in with them.

My early not-bold prediction: It won’t be 31 years. The Preakness was the basketball equivalent of the Chicago Bulls sitting Michael Jordan for most of the game, putting him in with 5 minutes left, letting him immediately score 20 points, and then taking him out with a minute left to save energy. Big Brown looked like he was ready to run three races at Pimlico on Saturday. It was never in question.

In the meantime, if this does not give you chills from about 2:02 on, come visit me, I want to see if you have a pulse. BTW: At 2:25, it officially became the best announcing job ever. I don’t think Al Michaels in Lake Placid beats this one.