Patty Wolfe | Horse Racing Free Tips

TDN Associate Editor Joe Bianca and multi-media producer Patty Wolfe are among the winners of the Media Eclipse Awards as announced Wednesday by the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, the Daily Racing Form and the National Turf Writers and Broadcasters.

Bianca and Wolfe were awarded the Eclipse in the ‘Audio/Multimedia Internet’ category for a piece written and narrated by Bianca and produced by Wolfe entitled “To Hell and Back: Belmont Marks a Deserved Triumph for New York City,” a tribute to the Belmont S., which took place as the first leg of the COVID-19 delayed Triple Crown Saturday, June 20, and appeared the day before the race. It is the first Eclipse Award for Bianca and a second for Wolfe, who also shared the honor with TDN’s Christie DeBernardis for a TDN Multimedia piece on off-the-track Thoroughbreds in 2018.

Bianca’s text and narration goes into the rich history of racing in New York and Belmont Park, which first hosted the Belmont in its current location in 1905. Wolfe weaved in archival racing footage with images of images of New York City, most impacted by the coronavirus.

“Winning an Eclipse Award is an honor like no other in racing and I’m immensely grateful to have been selected this year,” said Bianca. “I want to thank our producer Patty Wolfe and her incredible team of talented editors for illustrating my words so beautifully. Also thank you to our publisher Sue Finley for her steadfast support for my work as we branch out into different types of media at TDN. It has obviously been a very difficult and tragic year, but I’m so proud and thankful to have moved people with one of the inspirational success stories of 2020 in an ode to my beloved hometown.”

Added Wolfe: “This video is a reminder of the things we always had but almost lost. Other professional sports were not competing at that time, and New York had just been through a nightmare with the pandemic. NYRA’s running of the Belmont S. in June was momentous. Talking directly into his computer, Joe’s authenticity was compelling as he put the magnitude of the moment into words.”

The Paulick Report’s Natalie Voss is the recipient of the Media Eclipse Awards for both the ‘Feature/Commentary Writing’ category for her piece entitled “An Angel On His Shoulder: This Thoroughbred’s Fate Was Written in Ink;” and for the News/Enterprise Writing category for her multi-part series “A Decade IN, How Are We Doing With Thoroughbred Aftercare?”

NBC Sports receives the Eclipse for their coverage of “The Breeders’ Cup World Championships” Nov. 7, a program produced by Billy Mathews and Lindsay Schanzer; as well as the ‘Television/Features’ category for “Rider’s Up: The World’s First Sports Bubble,” which aired on NBC Sports Network Oct. 2, 2020, and was produced by the Hennegan Brothers.

Alex Evers is the recipient of the Eclipse for ‘Photography’ for “A Derby Without Fans” which ran in the Paulick Report Sept. 21, 2020.

The 2020 Eclipse Awards ceremony will be a virtual event. It will be televised live on TVG and streamed on other outlets on Thursday, Jan. 28 at 7:30 p.m. ET.

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It was a special day Wednesday for everyone who works on the TDN Writers’ Room presented by Keeneland, as the crew celebrated its 50th episode of the industry-leading weekly podcast. In a tribute to the show’s creator, the four hosts welcomed producer Patty Wolfe as the Green Group Guest of the Week to discuss her original vision for the Writers’ Room, how it has evolved since then and how she’d like to see it develop in the future.

“I’m a big podcast person and there’s one podcast that I love, NPR Politics’ Weekly Roundup, because it’s reporters, people that are used to just reporting the stories at NPR, never being celebrities themselves,” Wolfe said. “And it was so fascinating to get people who really knew their stuff as opposed to people who just are slick on camera. So I said to Sue [Finley], you’ve got such a smart staff, can we get some writers to sit around and do this? Sue said, ‘We’ve got buy-in here. We’ll do it. We’ll give it a try.'”

Originally intended as a medium to recap and preview racing and sales based out of a refashioned conference room in the TDN offices, the podcast quickly morphed into an opportunity for the writers to delve into deep, structural issues within the sport and speak candidly in pursuit of finding solutions. It also has now turned into a video recording done over Zoom, an innovation of necessity in response to the pandemic shutting down the original “studio”.

“From show one, I said. ‘Oh, this thing’s got a life of its own,”” Wolfe added. “It changed a lot from the initial thought, for the better. Who knew the kinds of stories that were going to come your way? This crazy year that has been in the sport, outside the sport, there was no topic [the hosts] weren’t willing to tackle. One of the things I enjoy the most is how honest it is. There’s no feeling of, ‘Hey, let’s take this polite approach and be deferential.’ No, you let it out. And that’s been the biggest surprise and treat for me. It just went its own way.”

Elsewhere on the podcast, there was plenty to discuss from The Jockey Club’s Round Table, and the writers zeroed in on the debate over whether and how to shrink the disproportionate number of claiming races run in America with the goal of creating a safer environment for lower-level horses. They then explored Bill Finley’s article from Wednesday’s TDN about the issues plaguing Equibase’s new Gmax timing system at tracks across the country and the wide-ranging implications that come from incorrect clockings. In the West Point Thoroughbreds news segment, the topic turned to the extensive delay of Monmouth paying out its purses and how it particularly affects smaller stables. Click here to watch the podcast, click here for the audio-only version.

The post TDN Writers’ Room Celebrates 50 Episodes appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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