Daily Racing Form

INTERLUDE: An Important Life Update, and What I’m Thankful For This Thanksgiving

Posted on by Andrew Champagne

If you’ve followed me for the past several years, chances are you’ve noticed that I’ve been pretty quiet for the past few months, both on my site and on social media. There’s a rational explanation for this, and I’m ecstatic to report that it comes with a happy ending.

To tell this story, I need to go back to early-September. I had just worked, by my estimation, roughly 34 hours over Labor Day weekend, which included a lot of racing at Saratoga and Del Mar and a shooting outside the latter establishment. The following Wednesday, I was informed that, due to corporate cutbacks that are all too common in the fields of journalism, publishing, and horse racing, my position at The Daily Racing Form was being transitioned from full-time to part-time. This was not a performance-based decision, but strictly a money move.

At this time, it’s important to point out that I have no ill will towards anyone at DRF. I’ve been privileged to work with a lot of people who are among the best in the world at what they do, including my boss (editor in chief Jody Swavy), fellow web producers Neil Bisman and Matt Brennan, writers/handicappers, and people whose names you don’t know, but without whom nothing would get done. I’m proud of the work that I’ve done, which included massive gains in social media metrics and providing some fun audio-visual and written content. Additionally, that I was able to stay on in a part-time role (plus pursue other freelance work) as opposed to being cut entirely allowed me to at least have SOME financial security while I looked for a full-time opportunity.

I kept this pretty quiet for a number of reasons. I don’t enjoy being a burden to others if I don’t have to be, and I also didn’t want people feeling sorry for me. For the things I know how to do in social and digital media, I’m in one of the best places imaginable. While this situation was completely out of left field and threw me for a loop, I was confident I was going to be okay in the long run.

It’s with that in mind that I can make the following statement: I’ve landed on my feet.

I have accepted an offer to join the team at Outpost Capital, a venture capital firm located in San Francisco, as a Content Writer. My duties will actually be pretty similar to the things I’ve done at DRF, TVG, HRTV, The Saratogian, Siena College, and NBC Olympics, just in a different environment. I’ll be handling a lot of social and digital media tasks for one of their companies, MOAC (a tech company specializing in blockchain development), while also taking on some PR responsibilities and assisting in production of their weekly webinars. It’s a great job, and I’m excited to get started.

Now that I’ve lined up a full-time gig, I need to spend a LOT of time talking about those who have helped me. This list is filled with many different types of people, but it’s headed by a select group that I’m incredibly grateful for.

First and foremost, I would never have been able to get through this without my family. My father, mother, stepfather, sister, and stepsister, among others, were as supportive as a family could be (no small task from 3,000 miles away), and it’s a tremendous relief to be able to tell them that they don’t have to worry anymore (at least not about this!!!).

Just as important in all of this has been my girlfriend, Alicia. I moved to Northern California nine months ago to spend more time with her. She’s been a rock in a time that wouldn’t have been easy for anyone, all while teaching a classroom of 26 third and fourth-grade students. We’re celebrating our five-year anniversary this weekend, and it’s great to have something else to celebrate on top of it. She’s amazing, and I love her very much.

Without freelance work, the past two-plus months would’ve been incredibly tough (have you SEEN rent prices in the Bay Area?!). Most importantly in this regard, I need to thank Joe Nevills, who introduced me to several contacts that provided work and helped me survive. A little less than two years ago, he listened to me vent my frustration about a situation I wouldn’t wish on anyone when he absolutely did not have to. That’s sparked a friendship I’m incredibly proud of, and one where I hope to someday repay the debts I’m quickly racking up.

In that vein, I also need to thank Patrick Mahan and Giles Anderson for allowing me the opportunity to work for them, as well as my bosses at Granite Media (Eric Ortiz, Michael Howerton, and Tony Mamone). With that in mind, I’m going to point out that just because I’m employed outside of the racing industry doesn’t mean I’m going to stop writing and producing racing/sports-centric content. I enjoy what I’m fortunate enough to do, and I’m not just going to disappear (quite the opposite, actually, as a steady income means I’ll be able to play the races more!).

I dealt with a lot of recruiters and prospective employers during this process. I applied for almost 600 jobs in a 2 1/2-month stretch (if you don’t believe me, I have a running Excel spreadsheet that helped me keep track of everything), and in doing that, I met a lot of people. Naturally, with that kind of sample size, I’ve got some great stories and some really bad ones (including what will go down as the worst interview of my life with someone who couldn’t quite understand the concept of organic social media). To the recruiters that took time out of their schedules to help me in some way, and to the hiring managers who treated me with respect and honesty (and called/emailed when they SAID they were going to call/email), thank you.

Finally, there’s a long list of friends and professional acquaintances I need to mention that provided valuable support, whether they knew it or not. That list, which I hope is complete and reserve the right to edit at any point, goes as follows: Danny Kovoloff, Gino Buccola, Pete Aiello, Jason Beem (yes, the five of us and Joe Nevills talk; somewhere, there’s an emergency meeting being called by a terrified racing executive!), Ted King-Smith (and the entire King-Smith family, which put on one impressive wedding last month!), Jack Powers, Nate March, Nick Karski, Natalie Nevills, Nicole Russo, Barbara Livingston, Craig Milkowski, Craig Gorbunoff, Dan Illman, David Aragona, Mike Dubose, Nick Kling, Nick Hines, Rich Perloff, Mike Joyce, Scott Hazelton, Ed DeRosa, Matt Dinerman, Jeremy Balan, Alicia Wincze Hughes, Tom LaMarra, John Gaburick, and Norm Macdonald (yes, THAT Norm Macdonald). I’m incredibly lucky to be a part of a close-knit group of people, and in that regard, I’m not going anywhere anytime soon. In fact, the guy who sometimes has a VERY hard time shutting up may have just gotten a bit more of a license to be vocal!

On a serious note, the last few months have been a pretty trying time. To those who knew, thanks for being there for me. To those who didn’t, thanks for keeping the faith (even though you probably didn’t know you were doing it). I hope to be around a lot more moving forward, and I REALLY hope I can use that time to give out some winners!

INTERLUDE: A Letter to My Younger Self

Posted on by Andrew Champagne

Hey, kid! Yeah, you. I’m you, 15 years down the line. Scary, isn’t it? The thought that the future version of you is in any position to write a letter to his younger self? Trust me, I didn’t expect this, either.

Like with pretty much everything else, you can blame this on professional wrestling (yep, you’ll still be watching). One of the guys you grew up watching, Diamond Dallas Page, wrote one of these, and he did it so well that it brought up things I’d forgotten. One of those things is that you just came back from your ninth-grade orientation at Kingston High School, and in that folder you’re carrying was a copy of the next day’s Daily Racing Form past performances for Saratoga.

Here’s the kicker, kid. What if I told you that, by the time you’re 29, you’ll be working for them and doing a lot of the things you’ve always wanted to do? Cool, right? It is. There’s just one thing you need to know.

That family curse your dad talks about, the one where a Champagne can’t ever do things quietly? You’ve got it, and you’ve got it bad.

Because of this, your trip to where I’m at now will be a long, strange one, complete with many twists, turns, and crazy moments that you’ll swear can only happen to you. Just bear with me on this one, because we’ve got a lot of ground to cover.

– – – – –

You know that audio-visual club you joined, KHS-TV? That’ll be one of the best things that’s ever happened to you. Your advisors, John Moriarty and Andrew Sheber, will learn a lot about you over the next few years, and they’ll be instrumental in forging the person you want to be.

It seems daunting as a nervous, pudgy high school freshman, but over the next few years, you’ll wind up being the main sports reporter for the club. Your junior and senior years will consist of traveling with teams, going in extra early the next day to cut highlights, picking up PA announcing work on the side, and ultimately becoming one of the most visible people at the school.

Your senior year, you’ll also write for the newspaper. Your attitude won’t sit well with some people. In fact, at the end of the year, the award you’ll win from advisor Sean O’Brien (one of the good guys) is entitled, “I used to be conceited, but now I’m perfect.” That won’t bother you, and it won’t bother you for a defined reason: Nobody can ever accuse you of not putting in the necessary work. Hell, there will be one newspaper where your grade for the journalism class that puts out the newspaper is something in the 210’s out of 100, simply because your name is on five or six different stories.

Opinions of you will vary widely. Some teachers (including your English and science fiction teacher, Mr. Stein, who you’ll co-host a game show with) will love you, and so will some students, including Ted King-Smith, your best friend since kindergarten (want to feel old? You’ll be in his wedding in 2018). As a senior, you’ll even mentor a kid named Ron Miles who reminds you a lot of yourself. Get ready for this: He’ll go into football coaching, win a national championship as a graduate assistant with Ohio State, and work for an NFL team. Others (namely some fellow students and an athletic director at a rival high school you almost get in a fistfight with) won’t care for your shtick. Some student-athletes will have other problems with you, namely the music you play at certain sporting events. If you’re disturbed by how much I remember, know that I am as well. At this point, there isn’t much I can do about my mind being Sicilian in nature. I apologize in advance, because this won’t get better.

When it comes time to go to college, you’ll get lucky. You’ll have two top choices, Ithaca College and Syracuse University. Syracuse will make your decision really simple, because they’ll reject you. Don’t sweat this, because you’ll wind up going EXACTLY where you’re supposed to go.

– – – – –

Be very thankful that you have two good parents. You’ve always been close to your dad, and he’s the one that took you to the track as a kid and to high school sporting events when he worked for a small local paper. You don’t share a lot of interests with your mother, and even today, she gets angry when you get frustrated about not picking a winning horse. That said, she’s always enabled you to do what you want to do, even when your desired career path isn’t glamorous.

All of that plays a large part in getting you to Ithaca College, specifically the TV/Radio program at the world-renowned Park School of Communications. The reason you pick Ithaca is the ability to do what you want to do right away, and you were right to do it. Immediately, you become the primary PA announcer for Ithaca College athletics thanks to associate athletic director Mike Lindberg and his staff, and you also pick up TV and radio work, too.

As good as Mike Lindberg, Ernie McClatchie, and his team are, though, there’s one negative constant, and it’s your first exposure to someone with actual power not liking you. The head sports information director will be a thorn in your side for the better part of four years, including once berating you in front of the entire press box for having the nerve to go to the men’s room during a delay in a football game. He’ll even go after your father when he shows up for a few games, solely because he thinks he can do whatever he wants without any repercussions (he can’t, but more on that later).

That one person, though, doesn’t cancel out all of the good things you’ll do and all of the people you meet. As a senior, you’ll become one of the voices of Ithaca College football on WICB, and you’d better bring it, because the people you’ll work with are GOOD. Your partner is Josh Getzoff, who’ll wind up calling games for the Pittsburgh Penguins. Your sports director is Nate March, who, in addition to becoming one of the top minor league baseball broadcasters in the country in his mid-20’s, will become one of your best friends (you’ll be in his wedding, too). You’ll call a game with Josh Canu, who’ll work for NBC Sports, and you’ll have a story for years to come when his car breaks down 40 miles from campus. Someone a few years younger than you, Gavin Cote, will work at ESPN and name-drop your beloved 1994 Chrysler LeBaron in a speech at Nate’s wedding (somehow, by the way, that car will get you through college). The sports radio and TV staffs become one big family, complete with irrational blowups at one another and wars about everything from women to the intramural flag football team (spoiler alert: your team stinks), but you’ll meet some of the best friends you’ll ever have by doing that.

You’ll also make real connections with some of your professors. You’ll play golf with a guy named Stephen Mosher, who’s pretty much Robin Williams’s character from “Good Will Hunting” come to life. You’ll talk horses with Jack Powers, whose credits include consultations on a hit TV show called “Modern Family.” You’ll love Peter Johanns, especially since he won’t kill you for counting the number of times he says the phrase, “something along those lines,” during his Advanced Studio Production class.

Even better, you’ll get the experience of a lifetime in 2010. Crazy as it sounds, NBC uses student interns from Ithaca and Syracuse during the Olympics. You’ll intern at the Winter Games in Vancouver as part of the Highlights Factory. You’ll meet Lester Holt, Mary Carillo, Al Michaels, and Bob Costas. You’ll go to the women’s curling semifinals with Nick Karski, who will spend most of his time wondering why he went to a curling match with a guy who never shuts up (don’t worry, part of that is why you two get along splendidly). You’ll work side-by-side with high-level guys like Brian Gilmore, Eric Hamilton, and Gary Quinn, all of whom are tremendous at their jobs, but even better people. Furthermore, it turns out you’ve got distant family in Vancouver who will show you around, even taking you in for a home-cooked meal when they have no obligation to do so.

Those six weeks will be some of the best weeks of your life. You’d better enjoy them, though, because when you get home, it’s going to be tough.

– – – – –

For all of the shtick you put forth sometimes, you’re also pretty conscientious about planning things. You major in TV/Radio at Ithaca while somehow pulling off a double-minor in Sport Studies and Speech Communication and somehow do it in 3 1/2 years, allowing you to get a three-month head start on a job hunt once you fly back from Vancouver. Having said that, I need to warn you: These next few months won’t go well.

You’ll send your resume to every single college athletic department, TV station, radio station, and newspaper you can think of. You’ll get varying responses, including some very nice rejections and a few mean ones (one of which you’ll still have in a separate email folder in 2017 because it stuck with you). Finally, in October, you’ll get a call from Siena College, and you’ll go to work…pretty much doing everything in the one department you swore you’d never work for at Ithaca: Sports information.

(By the way, remember how I said there’d be more on the Ithaca SID? Yeah, he’ll get fired a few years after you leave, and by the accounts of some people you trust, nobody will stand up for him as his fate is decided.)

You’ll work there for two years, and you’ll bust your butt before getting a full-time offer from The Saratogian. That puts you back at the racetrack, and in the stands at high school and college games in the area. You’ll love going to games, and you’ll love the people you work with (some of whom you’ll be close to years after you leave that paper). People loving you, though? That’s going to be dicey sometimes. You’ll get yelled at by a few people for impersonating “The West Wing” communications director Toby Ziegler’s ball-throwing tendency when thinking, and one of your co-workers will act in an unforgivable way at the track in the summer of 2013. Still, nobody can ever logically accuse you of not putting in the work, and that’s what gets you through that summer.

The day after Labor Day, you’ll take a train to New York City. You’ll head into a lounge at a hotel and meet a man named Phil Kubel, who’s hiring for the digital media arm of HRTV. It’s based at Santa Anita, and after meeting you, he’ll fly you out to California. You’ll sit in on meetings with execs like Amy Zimmerman and Michael Canale, and ultimately, you’ll move west the next month, in need of a fresh start that the job provides.

You’ll get it, and then some. You’ll love what you do, you’ll love being at the track every day, and, six weeks after you move, you’ll meet someone you’ll fall head over heels for. Trust me, kid. As bad as things seem directly before your move, you’ll know instantly that you’ve made the right decision to move when you meet her. She’s infinitely better-looking than you are, she’s actually got a desire to do the dirty work 99% of Americans will never want to do, and even though she doesn’t know it when you meet her, she’s destined to be the best third-grade teacher anyone could ever ask for.

You’ll get sent to Triple Crown and Breeders’ Cup races, some of the most well-known broadcasters will take a liking to you (namely Caton Bredar, Jeff Siegel, and Aaron Vercruysse), and even after a brief hiccup in the summer of 2014 that you’ll save the full story about for your memoirs (to be written once certain people retire or die), things will seem to be going incredibly well…and then you’ll get a monkey wrench thrown into everything.

You see, the TV station you work for will be sold to its main competitor, TVG, in early-2015. There’ll be a few weeks of uncertainty with regard to future employment, and you won’t know where money will come from. Thankfully, two men, Bhavesh Patel and Stephen Kennelly, will bring you into the fold, and, even better, they know how to manage you. You’re going to stun Bhavesh into silence at a meeting when you display your expertise, and rather than micromanage you, he and Stephen will simply recognize that you know how to do your job and leave you to it.

You won’t just handle digital media for them. You’ll handicap for them, and bluntly, you’ll be surprisingly good at it. In an age where people will look for any reason to complain about public handicappers (if you think it’s bad now, kid, just wait a few years until something called Twitter comes along), you’ll post a $500 profit on Pick Four tickets in 2015 and pick winners at a 27% clip in 2016. You’ll also host online broadcasts for them and be in charge of getting eyeballs on online content. You’ll gladly go the extra mile for what you do, especially since you’re paid hourly. What’s more, they’ll let you handicap for The Saratogian, where you’ve ascended to the role of featured handicapper following the retirement of Nick Kling (one of the best to ever pick horses on a daily basis).

Better still, you’ll meet people like you. There’ll be a guy in marketing who you work next to, and you won’t know a thing about him when you start. However, on a random walk to the other side of the office in your first week at TVG, you’ll notice Danny Kovoloff is reading the same wrestling blog you read. You’ll exclaim, “YOU’RE A SCOTT KEITH GUY!!!,” and giggle like a schoolgirl, and that’s how you’ll know you’re going to be okay.

You’ll meet two different Italian versions of yourself. One of them is headed out the door of TVG as soon as you arrive, it seems, but you wind up getting so close after he leaves that you get a standing invitation to Gino Buccola’s family’s annual Fourth of July extravaganza. Two side notes: One, his family may consist of the nicest people on the planet. Two, the greatest play of your athletic career will come at a softball game hosted near his house. Pro tip: At some point between now and Fourth of July in 2017, learn how to slide into third base.

The other Italian version of yourself is a track announcer that knows every small track like the back of his hand, it seems, and one who you’ll become close with in a bizarre way. You see, he’ll call a race at Gulfstream Park featuring a horse named Fallen Leaf, who appears to be on her way to victory. He’ll say, “No antics of any kind…,” only for the horse to prop near the wire and throw the jockey. He’ll deadpan, “…and there we go with the antics,” and your crazy mind will deduce that this must take off as a Twitter phenomenon. By Pete Aiello’s own admission, the era of the Aiellobomb will be a very strange time, but the two of you will begin bantering back and forth, and you’ll be better off for it.

You’ll also meet another guy to whom you’ll owe a debt you can’t repay. See, in 2017, your job at TVG will change drastically, to the point that you realize it’s time to look around (this is another story for the memoirs that can’t be written until certain people retire or die). This guy, who has never met you and barely knows who you are, will listen as you look for someone, ANYONE, to talk to about your situation. You’ll ramble, all while trying to sound somewhat coherent, and, bless his kind, Midwestern heart, he’ll give you an email address for Jody Swavy, the editor-in-chief at the Daily Racing Form. Within two months of the change in status at TVG, you’ll be on a plane to New York City to train for a job in digital media at the publication you just spent your high school orientation reading, and you’ll have Joe Nevills (and, by extension, fellow DRF Breeding colleague/former Saratogian sports editor Nicole Russo) to thank for a large portion of it.

Some of these people probably won’t like being name-dropped. The fact is, though, you won’t get anywhere without them. You’ll put in the work, but life’s about the people you meet and the relationships you forge. You don’t do Christmas cards, because you find them too time-consuming and boring, so you naturally choose to write 3,000 words (exactly 3,000, per Microsoft Word) to express your gratitude to those who deserve it, from your friends and family to a girlfriend that you’ve been with for four years and love very much. Like pretty much everything else you do, what some people think of as ego or a strong personality is really just trying to do the best you can at all times.

I don’t have a lot of other tips for you, because as I write this, I feel like I’m where I’m supposed to be. It doesn’t matter that the journey followed a circuitous route. I’m happy.

Do what makes you happy. Everything else will take care of itself.

Best,
Andrew

P.S.: Avoid the organic ice cream at the casino you visit in Aruba your senior year of high school. Just trust me.

INTERLUDE: Advice for New College Graduates (From a Degenerate Horseplayer)

Posted on by Andrew Champagne

Most times, when I post here, it’ll be about analyzing a horse race, or a card of races, or a Pick Four sequence. However, there are times where I feel the need to expound on more important things. Don’t worry; I’m NOT going to talk about politics! Done breathing sighs of relief? Good.

Anyway, an old professor of mine posted to Facebook Monday, saying that graduating seniors at Ithaca College were starting to come up to him and panic about entering the real world. He urged former students to post their career paths, and it turned into a gathering of young professionals giving advice on how to handle what happens when what you wind up doing isn’t what you were intending to do at an earlier point in your life.

Make no mistake, I love the work that I do. I help coordinate the Daily Racing Form’s social media efforts, which is a dream job for a lifelong horse racing fan who also has a passion for the written word and other forms of media production. The path I took to get there, though, more closely resembles a map from “Rocky and Bullwinkle” (where the heroes circled around for a long time before getting to their destination) than anything else.

I’m a little young to do a “letter to my younger self” kind of piece, but I’d like to think I’ve had enough life experience to give soon-to-be graduates (and anyone else in this position) some advice on how to deal with the curveballs they’ll be thrown going forward. My advice isn’t anything revolutionary, but it’s stuff learned from dealing with things that have happened to me, and hopefully, it helps someone out there.

1) Never close any doors.

When I was in college, I did pretty much every sports media-related thing one could do. I PA-announced home sporting events. I participated in the radio and TV stations. I wrote. I tweeted. I networked. I ate lots of free press box food, some MUCH better than others (with some press boxes eschewing feeding the working press altogether; looking at you, Frostburg State!!!).

About the only two things I didn’t do much of were sports information and newspaper writing. The sports information director at Ithaca College and I were not fans of one another, to put things very mildly. In fact, he’s one of two former work associates with a special section of his very own in my memoirs, which will be released in about 30 years when I need money to play Pick Four tickets. Meanwhile, I never did much writing for Ithaca’s award-winning student newspaper simply because I was neck-deep in other stuff (plus studies towards a major and two minors) and didn’t have time for it.

You can probably guess where this is going. My first job out of college was working in the sports information office at Siena College (thankfully for people with infinitely more class than the person I could’ve worked for at Ithaca!). After two years there, I moved on to my second job, which came at, yep, a newspaper. Granted, much of my duties revolved around stuff I’d already done (video production, website work, etc.), but the fact remains that I did things I never thought I was going to do, and I’m proud of what I did while at those stops. In the nascent stages of Twitter, I helped triple the follower count of the main Siena account, and while at The Saratogian, we won three different statewide awards for our digital media coverage of racing at Saratoga Race Course.

Don’t shy away from something different. Use what you know, learn what you don’t, and run with the ball when it’s given to you.

2) Get a work/life balance, and keep it.

Your first job is going to be a head-spinning experience. As the new person, you may get all the work nobody else wants to do, and it may seem daunting at times. Word to the wise: Work to live. Do NOT live to work.

What you’re doing likely isn’t rocket science (unless you’re actually an aspiring rocket scientist, in which case, this paragraph probably isn’t for you). I can count on one hand the number of busy-work assignments I remember from my first job that had to get done, for whatever reason. There were a ton, but I don’t remember them.

I remember things like how I skipped off to an OTB in Bridgeport, Connecticut, to get out of driving my bosses around during the 2011 MAAC basketball tournament (I played races from Delta Downs with six older Korean gentlemen who did not speak English). I remember heading to a casino in West Palm Beach between rounds of a golf tournament Siena “hosted” in Florida. I remember walking around in Inner Harbor on a trip to Maryland, looking at the plates on the ground outside Camden Yards where long home runs returned to the surface.

My point: Don’t forget about the big picture. Work hard, but don’t forget to do stuff that makes you happy. There are times where that’s easier said than done. One year at Siena, I didn’t have a single day off for a six-week stretch from New Year’s Day to Super Bowl Sunday. Don’t let office life beat you down.

3) When things get tough, breathe.

You’re going to mess up at some point. Everyone does; some people just know how to deal with it better. When it happens (not if, but when), don’t take it personally. Roll with the punches, do your job to the best of your ability, and get past it.

My story: In the summer of 2012, we had almost an entirely-new sports staff at The Saratogian. A clerk, who was not a devout racing fan, published a story online that had a headline calling the Haskell at Monmouth Park the Eddie Haskell Invitational. I didn’t author the story, and in fact had nothing to do with it, but as the main on-track reporter for the publication, I was the face of the paper.

Needless to say, our editor (Kevin Moran, who’s one of the best bosses I’ve ever had) reamed us out, as he should have. A complete reassignment of the staff was discussed by senior management (above Kevin’s head), wherein I would be taken off the track so as to proofread everything before it went to press and people who weren’t necessarily racing fans would be on-track, producing racing-related content in one of the country’s few remaining horse racing hotbeds.

It was a disastrous idea, and we all knew it. We went to Kevin and fought for what we believed in, and to his everlasting credit (and probably the horror of upper management), he gave us the go-ahead to continue as we were. The next day at the track, the story was posted in the Saratoga press box, complete with the embarrassing headline. I gave it a day up there so people could get their laughs in, but the following morning, I made a show of tearing it off the wall, crumpling it up, and throwing it into the garbage can. It was a sign that it was time to move on, and move on we did, winning a pair of awards for our on-site coverage of Travers Day.

4) Be prepared for change, and don’t be afraid of it.

Things happen in life that knock the journey you think you’re on off-course. Sometimes, they’re work-related. Other times, these things have to do with personal lives. At any rate, you’ll be tested, and some of these tests won’t be fun ones.

My field (digital media) seems to change every five seconds. If I commandeered a time machine, went back to 2007, and told everyone that a form of online communication where posts are limited to 140 characters or less is one of the most valuable methods of reaching people around the world, I’d be outright laughed at. In 20 years, we’ve gone from VCR’s and tape-traders sending bulky tapes around the world to uploading clips onto YouTube, where a seemingly-infinite library of videos exist on any subject one can think of.

For that reason, the job you think you want now may not exist as-is in five to 10 years, or it may exist in a modified form. Don’t be afraid to learn new things. Be prepared for things to happen that aren’t in your plan, and meet challenges head-on. If you fall, fall forward, get something out of it, and don’t be afraid to ask for help from those who care about you or those you respect.

I was helped by a lot of people to get where I am today, and paying it forward is one of the best things anyone can do. If you’re a soon-to-be graduate, and you think you’re in for a world of hurt in the real world, I can assure you that you’re not. You’re in the same position everyone else has been in at one time or another, and everything is going to be okay.

Need to vent? Need advice? Think I’m a self-important blowhard who shouldn’t be writing stuff like this (NOTE: if so, please reconsider coming to my website)? Click here to reach out directly. I read everything that comes in.

Ending a Chapter and Saying “Thanks”

Posted on by Andrew Champagne

As many of you already know, May 7th is my last day as an employee of TVG. I’m leaving the network, but I’m NOT leaving the racing business, as I’ve accepted an offer to join the fantastic team at the Daily Racing Form. For many reasons, this is the right move for me, but it’s not easy to close the door on a 3 1/2-year run with TVG and the station formerly known as HRTV.

In addition to my family, my friends, and my girlfriend, there are many people at both stops that did a lot for me. Southern California has a reputation as a place where those who shake your hand are looking to stab you in the back the second you turn around, but I’ve been fortunate enough to deal with a lot of supervisors and co-workers that helped to mold me into the person I am. This column is my way of saying thank you to the following people.

Phil Kubel: We need to start here, because without Phil, there’s no way I’m in California. He met a 24-year-old kid from upstate New York in September of 2013, and despite having no obligation to help, offered me a job in HRTV’s digital media department. I gradually took on more responsibilities, and when TVG acquired HRTV a year and a half after my arrival, I was hired, in large part due to the body of work I put together under Phil’s tutelage. I’m grateful for him allowing me to get my foot in the door when he could have easily slammed it shut.

Jeff Siegel and Aaron Vercruysse: There are three on-air people I’m specifically going to call out. Although I consider many current and former TVG and HRTV hosts and analysts friends (Gino Buccola, Scott Hazelton, Kurt Hoover, Rich Perloff, Nick Hines, Joaquin Jaime, Christina Blacker, Mike Joyce, Simon Bray, Dave Weaver, and Matt Carothers, to name a bunch), Jeff and Aaron were the first two to give me a shot and let me help them on several key projects. I was a producer and fill-in talent for Santa Anita Uncut, which served as the predecessor for both HRTV/TVG Extra and XBTV’s live broadcasts, and being in that kind of an environment was one heck of an education. They didn’t have to bring me into the loop, or let me contribute as much as I did, but they did.

Caton Bredar: It’s story time. HRTV sent me to the 2014 Belmont Stakes to help cover California Chrome’s attempt to capture horse racing’s Triple Crown. While there, I assisted Jeff Siegel on a primitive version of the “Uncut” broadcasts from just outside the Belmont Park paddock. It was a good show (would’ve been better had Commissioner held on in the Belmont at ridiculous odds!!!), but what I remember most came after it was over.

I was in the rickety HRTV trailer close to the Long Island Railroad platform after the races were over when Caton walked in. We’d just met for the first time earlier that week, and we didn’t know each other too well, but she got my attention, looked at me, and asked, “Are you trying to steal everyone’s jobs? You were really good!”

In my brief career to date, I’ve gotten a lot of feedback, both good and not so good, from some pretty powerful and/or well-known people. I can recite many pieces of hate mail from memory, including one from a Kentucky Derby-winning owner and another from upper management at a VERY prominent racetrack! There is no question that what Caton said to me is still the best compliment I’ve ever received from anyone in the horse racing business, and it’s something I won’t soon forget. Caton, if you’re reading: Thanks.

Kip Levin, Phil Dixon, Enrico Rusi, Bhavesh Patel: I needed to lump all four of these current or former TVG executives into one spot. We’ve all had bad experiences with higher-ups at companies at one time or another. However, I need to thank the members of this quartet for being an easy group to work with and/or for.

I’ll keep this short, but I want to point stuff out individually that marks how instrumental each person was in what I was able to do. Kip saw my passion for racing immediately, and he backed a lot of what I wanted to do on social media. Phil was always receptive when I had a line on a horse and never once tried to limit my enthusiasm for what I did despite having an office five steps from my desk. Enrico, the head of the TVG marketing department, was my second-line manager for a while, and the way he dealt with me following a key moment several weeks ago stands as a shining example for how to treat people in an honest, respectful way.

I ended with Bhavesh because there’s another story I need to tell. When I was hired from HRTV, he and Stephen Kennelly (more on him later) took me to lunch. Bhavesh’s management style was to ask challenging questions, and he asked what I felt the most pressing issue in horse racing was. Unbeknownst to him, I’d been asked that question many times before, so I had an honest answer ready about how the breeding industry commands racing’s best horses to leave the track earlier and earlier while also breeding for speed instead of soundness or stamina. As I recall, I did not take a breath for a solid minute when putting forth my answer, which may or may not have sounded like a sticking point in a politician’s stump speech.

My guess is that Bhavesh wasn’t prepared for that kind of reaction. Not only did he not ask me a single question for the rest of lunch, but over the next few months, I became the guy entrusted with growing HRTV/TVG Extra, as well as acquiring eyeballs on TVG’s audio-visual products through YouTube, Twitter, and other forms of social media. I need to thank him for acknowledging that I knew what I was doing, and also for letting me do it. This sounds REALLY simple, but sometimes, it doesn’t take a lot to manage your employees well.

Stephen Kennelly and Rebecca Somerville: If all managers were as talented as these two, all workplaces would be a lot more pleasant. Stephen managed me in marketing, Rebecca (also known as Becky Witzman) managed me in live production, and I’m grateful to both for the work I was allowed to do on their watch.

The reason you saw blog posts, videos, tickets, and Periscope broadcasts from me on TVG’s platforms for so long is because Stephen allowed it and, for the most part, didn’t tell me to stop. Meanwhile, under Rebecca, I’ve coordinated TVG’s Facebook Live streams and continued to grow our social media audience. For better or for worse, I wanted a career in media production because it just seemed more fun than 99% of the alternatives out there. In this case, my first-line managers did what they could to keep my fire lit, which made me more productive and also allowed me to enjoy what I did.

The TVG marketing department: If I seem wordy, or loud, or pompous to you as you consume this (or anything else I’ve written or produced), imagine dealing with me in-person in a bullpen-style setup all day. Not exactly a duty that inspires much enthusiasm, is it? Well, that’s the unfortunate task that was hoisted upon members of the TVG marketing department beginning in 2015, and whether you realize it or not, these people are some of the hardest-working employees in the world of online gambling.

If there’s a promotion happening, it’s their doing, from the planning stages all the way to when gamblers get paid out. Stuff changes all the time with little to no advance notice, and if technological failures arise, they deal with them as much or more than any other part of the company (quick aside: If you’ve tweeted mean things at TVG over the past two years, I was the one who saw them; if you got really mean, I accept apologies in the form of donations to your local no-kill animal shelter and gift certificates to sports bars). This cast of characters that includes Danny Kovoloff, Luciana Bach, Freddy Sundara, Tommy Gaebel, and Pedro “Cache Flush” Friere is among the best in the business at what they do, and these people don’t get anywhere near the props they deserve, either for doing their jobs or for dealing with my motor mouth as well as they have.

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They say it takes a village to raise a child. From my standpoint, it certainly took a lot of people to mold me into the person I’ve become. I could go into the reasons why I’m leaving to take on a new challenge, but what’s more important is to recognize all of the people that helped me succeed in the jobs I’ve held for 3 1/2 years. Without the people I’ve mentioned, you’re probably not on this site right now.

To those I mentioned, it’s been a pleasure working with you, and this has been my way of expressing that.