Webmaster's Page
9/3/08 - I would like to thank everyone for the well wishes sent concerning my father. He is doing improving on a daily basis and we are hoping for a full recovery after some time in rehab....months in rehab.....it's going to be a long fall!! The website is not up to full speed but we are getting there. I thank everyone for their patience during this time.
8/30/08 - On Thursday afternoon, my father, Ashel MacDonald, suffered a stroke and was admitted to Eastern Maine Medical Center. When something like this happens, your only concern is taking care of family. Unfortunately, the web site was not updated for a few days. We did miss posting the condition sheet for Windsor's Labor Day card and Scarborough's condition sheet was posted late, which I apologize for. As you may expect, I am very far behind on compiling data and it may be a few days until we are fully updated. I ask for your understanding. By the way, my father is recovering nicely, and is getting his orneriness back, which to those who know him, is a good sign!
6/10/08 - Apologies to all for the downtime over the last few days. I know how important timely updates are, and I was truly saddened not to be able to update. I was out of town and my laptop crashed. If I had been in Maine, I would have had my computer geek friends get me up and running quickly, but I do not know any geeks in the Phoenix AZ area, which was where I was at. I will be working hard to get the website fully updated as soon as possible.
5/23/08 - We are pleased to welcome Marc Reynolds as a contributor to the website. Marc will take over the picks for week in review starting this week.
7/21/07 - Every year after Bangor's closing day, we go on vacation for a week. The webpage will still have current condition sheets and anything that is time sensitive we will post. Driver standings and the such may be delayed a little. Everyone deserves a little R&R!!
1/15/07 - We have put up our year end survey today. We will be taking votes until 1/31/07. We added a few new questions from previous years to spice things up a little. I know we haven't updated the main page lately, but I want you to know that we are still working in the background on things for this upcoming year. We are hoping to redesign the page. Our first try failed miserably, so we are back to the drawing board. We are also going to the archives for the sire stakes and we have some other surprises in store
4/21/06 - We have updated the track statements for the first time this year. Numbers are complete up to April 15. At first glance, the numbers are a little deceiving. Average bet per race is down by 20%. If you just look at Saturdays and Sundays, which was all that was raced in 2005, the handle is only down by 12%. The increase in days and dashes and altered the per dash figures
We have added a page for claimed horses. I hate putting up information incomplete, but for a while we will have to until we can find a better way to get the claim information quicker.
3/9/06 - This is all rumors, but what I have heard is that Scarborough will hold it's first qualifier on March 15 and the 45 day rule has been waived. Unfortunately, I cannot confirm this officially, that's why I'm posting it here and not on the main page. I am hoping to have official information very soon.
3/5/06 - I have been asked frequently over the past week about qualifiers and
conditions for Scarborough's opener. I have made phone calls to get the
information, but as of right now it is not available. As soon as it is available
we will post it immediately.
One of our projects that we have been working on during the off season is a
"graduates page" to chronicle how Maine Sire Stakes performers have done after
the stakes program. Of course we are quite anal around here and want to make
sure it is presentable. We hope to have it up soon with at least last year's
graduate on it.
12/18/05 - Well, the season has come and gone. We will have year end numbers up very soon and we will have voting on hot hand, hooves and barn again this year. I expect that to be up by mid week or beginning of next week. We'll have voting for a few week and announce the winners in Mid January.
11/26/05 - Its the middle of Thanksgiving weekend, and I thought I speak my two cents about a couple of issues before I head back out to the shopping mall. (1) We put up a little thing about Due Damage in the Oil Burner Series and was pleasantly surprised to see where he was beaten by a former stable mate in Sidereal Hanover who won in 1:53.4. Due Damage went a tough trip and faded down the stretch. (2) Special Move tasted defeat for the first time Friday Night at Saratoga finishing second in 2:01 for her new owners. (3) Still working on the track statement section. A sneak preview is available if you look at Skowhegan or Bangor. The rest are coming. (4) Jason Bartlett's first three days at Northfield have not been friendly. In 14 starts, Jason has only hit the board once with a second and he's been sitting behind some good horses from what I can tell.
10/8/05 - We have redesigned the track handles page. This is still a work in progress, but I wanted to get it posted. There is some information missing, but hopefully we will get it finished soon. We are adding purses to each track and have renamed the page. I am hoping to hit the achieves and be able to go back in time. Any comments are welcome.
9//7/05 - We are having some problems with a couple of pages, specifically driver & trainer standings, season leaders and week in review. Hopefully everything will be fixed in a day or two. (I will give you a spoiler: Mark Athearn, Race Me Volcano & Don Bishop were picked for week in review)
8/21/05 - I was informed today of a reason that my standings may be off from Skowhegan's. One of Jason Bartlett's wins was actually a second but he was placed first. I still stand behind my standings, but that may account for the difference between the standings. A lesson to be learned for future reference. Thanks to Butch Eaton for pointing this out.
8/20/05 - The Skowhegan State Fair awarded $500 to the leading driver and trainer this year. The trainer's award was given to Valerie Grondin. While I was at Skowhegan today, Lloyd Johnson was announcing that Jason Bartlett and Heath Campbell was tied for the driver's title going into the last race. I left after the amazing performance given by HEADMASTER in the Hight Memorial. John Davidson won the last race, thus I'm assuming that Jason and Heath split the $500. When I did the driver standings after the results were posted on the USTA website, I realized that my standings had Jason with 11 wins and Heath with 10 wins. I double checked and triple checked my standings. I can only state that I use the results that are submitted to the USTA. If there is a late driver change and it does not get submitted to the USTA, I may not be aware of that. I used all my resources available to me to confirm the standings posted on this website and stand behind them. Any questions or comments can be sent to info@meharness.com.
5/12/05 - In doing our little overhaul of the driver career wins page, we thought of doing one for trainers with Maine connections. In doing some research, we found that USTA's pathway, which we get our data from, does not go back many years for trainers. For example, Warren Strout only has 25 career trainer wins. We may come up with something in the future.
12/31/04 - We were notified today that the internet provider that was hosting our message board was going to start charging us for the message board due to the volume of posts since we put the page up. Due to the fees that were involved, we have had to discontinue the message board.
This is unfortunate because in some ways the message board was a service to the horse people of this state. There have been multiple posts that have made me uncomfortable and I have been asked by some to pull the message board. I did not want to pull the board based on comments made by a few people, but I was considering it due to the negative comments that were being posted. I had not made the decision to kill the message board at the time that I was notified about the charges that were going to be imposed by the internet company.
I believe that a message board would be a good service to the community, but I think we need to tweak it. This started out as an experiment and I have learned a lot. I believe that a person that wants to post would have to register with a valid e-mail address to post. That doesn't mean that there name would be listed on a post, they could use a nickname, but we would hold their name on file in case a problem arose. I also think a message board need a moderator, and I don't have time to do that.
I am going to look at other avenues to try to get a modified message board up sometime in the future. Unfortunately, it all comes down to money. We do not have the funds available to host a message board at this time. Of course, if you know anybody that would like to sponsor a message board, send us an e-mail and I will forward all information needed.
Please feel free to forward your comments or complaints to us at info@meharness.com. We read all email and answer all email when appropriate.
11/30/04 - We have plans for a couple of things upcoming on the webpage:
11/14/04 - Some stats on the webpage as we celebrate our first birthday today
8/1/04 - After a month of hassles encountered including data
loss, vacations without being able to upload to the web page,
running out of
space on the host server, we are back up and running at full speed. We apologize
for any inconvience that was
incurred. As soon as we get the results of the
stakes races from Presque Isle, we should have everything updated.
4/15/04 -We have heard that the rally that took place today in August was a success. The horsemen were very professional, got the point across, and let the legislators hear our message.
We are starting "Week in Review". We will pick the best performance by drivers, trainers and horses for the week that has past. At the end of the season, we'll have a poll and everyone can vote on the best for the year.
Landmark Honor starts this weekend at Hippodrome de Montreal. Irv is going north of the border. We'll see how he does.
1/17/04 - The 2003 Season Leaders page previously had ARMBRO WRANGLER as the fastest three year old pacing gelding. We have since found out that although EXCUSE ME MARION was listed with the USTA as a horse, he was gelded before the racing season started. Thus we have made the change. Apologies all around.
We appreciate all the kind comments that were received at the MHHA banquet.
We are working on getting all of the reports updated with accurate information. We realize that some reports are incomplete and we are working hard to get the information complete.
12/30/03 - Our E-Mail is back up and running. If you sent us an E-Mail over the last few days, it was returned with error messages. The problem has been solved and we have been promised it won't happen again! Please feel free to forward any comments or questions.
12/10/03 - I have received a packet of various news items around the country on Penn National, Capital Seven and other news items. It is too large for this website, but I would be happy to forward it to anyone that wants to do some light reading. Just send me your e-mail address at info@meharness.com.
12/4/03 - I received a draft faxed copy of the suitability report on Shawn Scott and Capital Seven today, but could not get a legible version on the website. I have since found that the Portland Press Herald has put it up. Search http://www.mainetoday.com/ for it. You will need Adobe Acrobat.