You may (may not) have noticed a new listing in the sidebar - The Thoroughbred Bloggers Alliance ("TBA").

Seven bloggers - Athlone included - recently joined forces, not because we canvass the same topics or even analyse racing in the same States/countries, but given our commitment to the blogging medium, and unified by our love of the sport we felt an umbrella label would help both in raising awareness of racing within the blogosphere, and more specifically Patrick Patten's 'Standings' system.

I'm currently the only non-American member of the group.

Given the nascent state of the TBA it was a pleasant surprise to see Paul Moran's article "Bloggers make valid point on Eclipse voting" which not only mentions the group but takes a magnanimous approach to blogging - and those that engage in it.

"The blog, a fairly recent addition to the language that means Web log, has grown exponentially... The best bloggers have become influential, particularly in the political arena, but also in every conceivable field, enterprise, quirk and minutiae. Racing is no exception.

While the number of specialty sports blogs is incalculable, only a handful are devoted to racing. These are labors of love, produce no income and require considerable effort of people impassioned by things to which the mainstream horseplayer is oblivious. Horseplayers are not typical sports fans. Racing is a participatory sport, not a spectator sport.

[...] Those whose interest goes beyond the daily calculation of return on investment, to the point of creating and maintaining a blog, are few and far between.

Considering the shallow pool from which they might emerge, it is perhaps inevitable that an announcement this week heralding the formation of the Thoroughbred Bloggers Alliance listed only seven members, one of them an Australian."

Full story at the following URL.