June 8, 2012

As I write this, like many of us in racing, I am waiting the news rumored about the Belmont and whether I'll Have Another will run?  

Even though I don't teach formal classes in the summer it does stay quite busy.   Many industry folks ask me what I do in the summer and assume it is easy street.   Well this week I had a pretty full schedule and did not get done all that I would have liked.

The week's activities included: helping grad student, Christina, with a meeting at Bio Stats to discuss the feasibility of her project and statistical design methods, re-examine the exhibitor space options for our annual conference, meetings with HTA (Harness Tracks of America), final meetings with a vendor that will help us with a new database that will include online registration for the symposium, preparing class materials, made travel plans to visit an intern and the National HBPA meetings, brainstorming symposium topics for the conference and learning how to digitally sign a contract.  ( I hate to admit but my first time - easier to do especially since this was with an international company.)

Perhaps the most exciting work this year is planning for the fall semester course that we started last year in conjunction with the computer science students on campus.   If you were at last year's Symposium you saw the results of the first class.  We used QR codes at the conference and many other technology related ideas and prototypes were displayed.  In fact two students got a consulting job from their performance and are developing a horse racing game and other applications.

Ugh! Well the news came in as I finish up this blog today - I'll Have Another is out of the Belmont.   As all teams say except the champs, maybe next year?