Thursday Thoughts with Jason Beem July 17, 2025

A good Thursday morning to you all! Typing this column from my new computer as after almost six years of fine service, my former MacBook has moved onto computer heaven. Honestly, I was so pleased with how fast they had me up and running with a new one from the Apple store with all of my settings and everything. I got home and just started recording and writing and what seemed like a major inconvenience is now all but fixed. 

I wanted to write a little bit today on technology and how having something small go wrong can lead to some large effects on our business. Now granted, my podcast coming out a couple of hours late really isn’t a large scale effect. But just not having access to my computer, my main instrument for my work here at TwinSpires, felt really powerless. All of a sudden the screen stopped working which meant that I also had to stop working. I couldn’t look at Monmouth past performances, I couldn’t watch replays, or even type this column. Nothing. Completely stopped. 

There’s a thread that goes around on racing Twitter about “racing has the best technology.” Our industry certainly has had many times when some glitch in technology or just the power staying on has forced races to delay or cancel. I tried thinking of a few times just from tracks I’ve worked at over the years and I feel like I could write a couple weeks worth of columns just on these stories. 

The lights going out during a race at Grants Pass Downs jumps right to the front of my mind. This wasn’t a technology error as much as it was a human error. Someone forgot to adjust the timer on the lights to account for our later than normal last post time. And when 10:30 p.m. arrived just as the horses went into the turn, poof. Darkness.

Tampa Bay Downs had the tote system fail for the entire East Coast last year, quite inconveniently just 25 minutes before our biggest and highest handle race of the season, the Tampa Bay Derby (G3). I still think about how crazy it is that the one time it happened, the one time in the four years since I’ve been there, it was right before the Derby. Just insane bad luck. 

Just the other day, the night before my computer went belly-up, I was watching the World Series of Poker on a YouTube stream. It was remarkably fun and interesting to watch, until, the signal went down. They had originally planned to air a free hour on YouTube of the final table before sending it over to their pay channels where people would hopefully sign up and join to watch. But the signal went down. It was down for maybe 20 minutes, but the whole poker world online just stopped. Everyone was freaking out, what was happening? Eventually the signal got restored and they kept the broadcast on free for the rest of the night, which was a nice perk for the inconvenience of missing a few hands. 

Technology or power issues will always happen on occasions. I suppose you try and get the best service and equipment you can and hope for the best. I mean even the lights went out at the Super Bowl that one year and the NFL is the biggest production known to man. So many of us are attached to our devices and technology for so many parts of our lives, including our occupations. It’s crazy how fast having them go down can change so much. 

Good luck this weekend with the Haskell (G1) and wherever you’re watching racing!