Day upon day of 'Revenge'

To start off a Friday, just a short note to thank Steve Byk for the invitation to take part yesterday in his "At the Races" talk show on SiriusXM radio. He was a good and gracious host, and I don't just say that because he apparently agrees with me on Joe Drape's story about I Want Revenge.

Thanks also to Steve for not only mentioning this blog, but for spelling out the URL as a big helper to those who have no clue what its name references.

I'm not completely confident I got across the entirety of my thoughts (and that I didn't occasionally sound like a moron) during the 20 minutes or so that we were on the air, but if I failed in any way, it wouldn't be Steve's fault. I do think I was pretty clear with those thoughts in my critique of Drape's story and in the evolving comments thread taking place thereafter.

It's a bit staggering that my opinion on something an Eclipse-honored New York Times reporter wrote has taken on such a life of its own, with hundreds of hits coming into this little corner of the blogosphere the past few days. Those visitors are largely due to referrals from Equidaily.com, Raceday360.com and Paulickreport.com. But as my Sitemeter counter allows me to track, a good number of visits also are the result of individual readers believing that my post was worth reading such that they've introduced others to this blog through links in message board and discussion group chats at sites like Thoroughbredchampions.com and Byk-founded Derbytrail.com.

To those readers, I also offer my thanks. While the bustle and the furor of the past few days will likely settle down, some of you will probably continue to visit and read in the future, and I appreciate your readership.

Someone even said they were a "big fan" of mine, which makes them a member of a very exclusive -- that is to say, quite small -- club.

Of course, the next person along in that discussion group questioned my motives for rebutting Drape, calling my critique "way out of whack" and suggesting that "something else is at play." Perhaps, the writer suggests, I'm involved in a "disagreement over drugs or making vet records public."

Is the writer suggesting I'm a surrogate for big pharma? Or just vets and trainers who practice "win-by-needle?" ... Your guess is as good as mine.

But there's nothing like a good conspiracy theory to try and take down an argument that you might find difficult to dismantle on its merits.

Postscript: It merits mentioning that, a few days after this post, the person who wrote the message board post referenced above -- about an argument being "way out of whack," etc. -- has contacted me privately, with her full name (which many Internet-frequenters won't do), and noted that her comments were directed to someone else on the message board and not toward my blog on the subject. I had not read her comments that way (nor had someone else on the board who responded), but it is appropriate at this juncture to add that tidbit of information, although I will not rewrite the original in order to maintain the blog's historical integrity. (In other words, so you won't come back and wonder where the original ending went.)