First and foremost, the question I get asked at least a few times a week: yes, we’ll be reopening for more custom pedigree reports in September. Email subscribers, keep an eye on your inbox over the next few days and we’ll let you know exactly when the listing will go live! I remain absolutely delighted at the response to these and really appreciate those of you who have left reviews – all of them 5 stars to boot. It takes us 4-6 hours on average to complete these (and I have now found myself on WhatsApp calls to both Hungary and Ireland tracking down information, in case you ever doubt our dedication!) so we’re very grateful for the support and the feedback from y’all.

I’m also working on getting the spreadsheet done for Burghley, which really snuck up on me here. It’s my favorite 5* so I’m excited, even if it’s being a bit overshadowed by the upcoming WEG. The Burghley data will be available for purchase on our webstore as well if you want all the details or want to follow along at home.

The big announcement this week is that I’ve finally rolled out the Sporthorse Breeding Consultations, a service that has been highly requested. It took me a while to get my PowerPoint just the way I wanted it, and to create all my supporting PDF documents, but I finally finished everything. All the info and details are in the listing if anyone is interested in that.

That’s all the news, now it’s time for the “pondering” part of the post.

I remain highly frustrated by a lot of the live stream commentary for US events. It’s… not good. We’re missing so many opportunities to mention US breeders (there were two horses from the same US breeder in the 4* at GMI but not a peep was said), information being given about horses is wrong a lot of the time (like… really wrong), and it all just seems very disorganized and not particularly educational. For comparisons sake, go watch some of the past live streams of events like Millstreet in Ireland. THAT is what we should all be aiming for. It’s so well done – a riding lesson and a breeding lecture all in one go, and they’ve got all their stats and pronunciations down pat.

What frustrates me the most is that I can help with this. It’s one of the BRC services – providing breeding data and facts to live streams and events. What I’m struggling with is 1) getting it to the right people 2) getting some commentators (a couple popular ones in particular) to use it. Or even look at it.

Live streams are just so incredibly expensive to put on (like, can be mid-5 figures) it baffles me that very little effort seems to go into a majority of the commentary. Hire people that genuinely want to do a good job with your event (I know a few!), not people that want to get on air and talk about themselves and/or talk over their co-commentators the entire time. And if you’re hired as a commentator, show up prepared. Know how to pronounce things so you don’t spend 2 minutes arguing over a name on the live stream. Have talking points. Try your best to be accurate with what you’re saying. Live streams are such a massive opportunity to educate the masses and get people excited about what they’re seeing, and I can’t help but feel frustrated every time the commentary is subpar. We can do better!

The only way I can think of to really help prioritize this with organizers is to give them feedback. Like… any of us who have something relevant to say about it (positive or negative), or suggestions, or requests, I think we should be giving it. Every time. So many of the people I talk to agree with me in thinking that a lot of commentary really leaves plenty to be desired, but I don’t think any of that ever reaches the organizer’s ears. The audience for these live streams is so huge though, I can’t help but feel like we’re really missing the boat here as a sport. I’d love to find a way to change that.