Introducing Tout Wire and other improvements
By Dana Byerly
It probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that people interested in horse racing are also interested in picks, previews, touts and tips. The Wire has always been dedicated to aggregating and curating commentary about racing, but every once and while the sites we pull include a race preview or a picks post, and those never fail to get traffic.
We’ve wanted to create a Wire dedicated to picks for some time, and recent upgrade has now made it possible. And thanks to this upgrade, we’ve created Tout Wire, sponsored by Twinspires!
Just like the original Wire, Tout Wire will pull in links to posts from various sources, and there are plenty of sources for picks, previews and selections! In the sidebar we’ve added links to official picks pages for North American Thoroughbred tracks where available as well as links to free picks, free international picks and paid picks.
The upgrade allowed us to enhance the content for the original Wire as well, so if you haven’t checked it out in a while, or ever, we’ve added many new sources. Now, in addition to the steady flow of commentary and observations about the state of the industry, we have more sources on subjects such as breeding, history, international racing and harness racing. We’ve also moved a couple of the picks oriented feeds in The Wire, such as Classic Thoroughbred Champions and the Turk, to Tout Wire.
We’ve also beefed up The Wire’s sidebar with a number of improvements, including the return of replays from YouTube (be sure to check out yesterday’s action from Dubai!). Given the notable uptick in video content, and more recently podcasts, we’ve added a Podcast/Radio links section as well as a Video Commentary links section to the sidebar. And as always, we have links to the latest news for North American racing, Breeding/Sales and International racing. A few improvements are pictured below…
Both the original Wire and Tout Wire display the latest five posts from the last 60 days for all of our sources. While we’re not an archive, we will always have links to the most current commentary, news, picks and replays. Unlike other aggregation sites, we list the first 50 words of each post on a single page and send the traffic directly to publishers. We want our visitors to be able to easily scan for relevant posts and read them at their source, sending additional traffic to those who create original and often independent horse racing content. Comment at the publisher’s site, not ours!
Elsewhere at the site, history buffs will be happy to note that Eliza McGraw’s Outrider column will make a return in a few months. If you’re not familiar with her posts, check them out here. During her brief hiatus, she finished her soon to be published book, Here Comes Exterminator!: The Longshot Horse, the Great War, and the Making of an American Hero
In addition to being a one stop shop for up-to-date commentary, picks and replays, we’re also hoping to bring you a few new original pieces and perhaps more data related posts. A big thanks to our sponsor, Twinspires! After checking out all the previews and picks at Tout Wire, be sure to get your wagers in!
Visit Tout Wire, sponsored by Twinspires!