Macedonio: Pick a side with conviction

As a media guy, part of my job now is to find hills. The types of hills that cause people to either join my crusade or rally against it!

If you watch any type of entertainment nowadays, you want conviction from your host! If I ask you, “Should we have year-end awards for bettors?” you can give 10 different answers, but it had better come with some pizzazz or I don’t want to listen.

Sadly, I think the middle ground has become a boring wasteland, a neutral zone if you will. With more people and opportunities to flood their opinions into the public eye, you have to explore further and further to simply be heard. People fly off on these hot takes without ever considering if it’s a hill that’s worth dying on.

Sometimes I see a topic and quickly move on. It’s not that I don’t care about that subject, it’s just that I don’t care enough to try and change it or to have an opinion on it. I don’t care enough if Hannelore Hanover, Ariana G, or Manchego wins Horse of the Year. An award voted on by 130 people won’t change my opinion on the races and experiences I had with those horses. I’m not going to argue semantics over how people voted and what attribute weighs more.

Will the elimination of the passing lane work and increase the handle? I don’t care enough to argue or go into deep thoughts, because soon enough we’ll find out the answer. I like data and science, not theoretical and philosophy.

The first time that I look at a new topic, I just ask myself if this is a hill worth dying on. That may be dramatic, but dedicating more than 15 minutes to a topic or idea is committing a piece of your life that you can’t get back. Make sure that it’s worth it! Ask yourself if you could physically have an impact on that topic before diving headfirst into a twitter war.

My job now is to make you commit to a side of the hill, but did this article make you second-guess how many hills you’re willing to climb? I guess if I’m bored and can’t find a hill there are many ways to become a catalyst for a conversation and create a hill.

Manchego didn’t lose all year, she’s Horse of the Year! Who cares if she did it as a 2-year-old? Billy Parker should be in the Hall of Fame, he’s got 10,000 wins! Jeff Gural is doing what is best for Harness Racing!

See how easy it was to create hills with conviction! Now go pick your side while I create more controversy.