It’s funny the people you meet who change your life.
Today as I write that I am thinking of Scott Finley. Back in the halcyon days of 2011, you see, I wrote for the TwinSpires blog, and under their auspices I attended the Cheltenham Festival to record videos and write a bunch of blog posts. I wasn’t wearing a hat and I hadn’t quite worked out all the kinks on the catch phrase yet and I surely could have used Travis Stone’s bing-BONG trick. If you don’t believe me, the evidence is right here on YouTube.
Anyway, within days of that amateurish vid being shot (no fault of ace cameraman Frank “Sure Shot” Scatoni), I met a couple of people at Cheltenham whom I am now proud to call friends, both of them courtesy of the great Scott Finley.
One was Matthew Taylor, for whom I will now be writing 1-2 times a week through the Breeders’ Cup over at attheraces.com. Matthew and his family are fantastic people and I am excited to visit them as soon as this little bug we’re dealing with recedes and our borders are open once again.
The other person I met on that trip was Nick Luck. I knew Nick’s work my days in the preceding eight years or so. These were the days of the late, lamented “Kitchen” forum, where I first met the likes of The Giant, Kevin Blake (can’t recall his forum name), ACCA, ABD, Dan Hardcore (by extension), and of course, Rob Dove – then and now, one of the top ten propunters in the UK today.
I would watch English racing every morning via the proper coverage (I could tell you how, but I’d have to kill you), and Nick Luck obviously stood out as an amazing broadcaster, whose combination of presenting skills and racing acumen made me take notice. I’ll even go so far to say that I said to myself that if I ever ended up in any sort of presenting role, I wanted to be like that guy. (I clearly haven’t succeeded but that’s not his fault).
Anyway, today I am proud to announce that Nick is joining our team at In the Money Media. You can read all about it in today’s TDN.
And thanks again, Scott!
