MyRacehorse
A profile on MyRacehorse and Spendthrift Farm for Business Lexington.
I loved this assignment from Business Lexington to write about the owners of Authentic, winner of the 2020 Kentucky Derby. The majority owner is Spendthrift Farm; the fun owner is MyRacehorse and the 5,314 people who signed up for the MyRacehorse app.
When I talked with MyRacehorse owner Michael Behrens, my first question was to ask what he thinks of Lexington and has he ever been here. "I'm downtown right now," he said.
Do what? This was on Sept. 24, two and a half weeks after the Derby. Told me he was packing up the family and moving from California to Lexington in November. How cool is that?
I had another great phone conversation with Ned Toffey. He said, “Winning a Derby is not the kind of thing you get to do every day.” He’s the general manager of Spendthrift Farm. [side note: I cannot type the word m-a-n-a-g-e-r. I spell it manger. Away in a manger. I rely heavily on spellcheck to do its squiggly thing when I write about managerial people.]
The horse industry has so many facts and figures, so much nuance and nomenclature, I spent hours in the rabbit holes we call research. [note to article writers, including myself: Stop doing this. Write first and research later.]
Every time I find some tidbits and take the time to put them together into a fine little sentence or two, I wind up having to delete them. Sigh. Actually, I relegate the cutting-room-floor notes to a draft email with the subject line "such & such topic - extras." Every few months I go through the drafts folder and delete those emails.
For example, here's an informative half-paragraph I crafted from various facts, but it didn't make it into the article because my assignment was to write about the business, not about the horse or the race.
Authentic went off at 8-1 odds, winning the mile and a quarter in 2:00.61, the seventh-fastest time of all Derby winners (and the fastest since Monarchos in 2001). The payout was $18.80, $6 and $5 for win, place and show on a $2 wager.
This is what the phrase "Kill your darlings" means, as Stephen King said in his book On Writing, semi-quoting Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, who said, "Murder your darlings." [Acckkk, I came *this close* to rabbit-holing Sir Arthur's life and times.]
If it does not fit, delete it. If it's not germane, you must refrain.
And, back to the article for Business Lexington. Here’s the official online version, as it appeared in the November 2020 issue: https://smileypete.com/business/myracehorse