Flatter: Equibase outage reminds us no system is perfect

Is Equibase still down? How about now? Now? Still? 

Those questions echoed Wednesday and Thursday like they were plainchants in the stairwell of a 16th-century monastery.

The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority’s website being glitchy and slow was one thing. HISA, SchmISA. Just don’t take away our Equibase.

We were told one lightning strike Wednesday afternoon in Lexington, Ky., brought Equibase, its overlords at The Jockey Club and, therefore, the racing industry to its knees.

For 19 hours horse bios were gone. So were PPs that use Equibase as their linchpin. Morning lines for races drawn days earlier? Sorry. They were held hostage, too. Some handicapping contests even had to be canceled. The Maryland Jockey Club had to take entries – get this, kids – by hand. Find me a parchment and some quills.

It all reminded me of something I heard at a Super Bowl news conference not too many years ago from a guy whose business card said he was a camera operator from a TV station in Sacramento. In truth, his job description could have been cynical curmudgeon. It was like I was staring into a looking glass at the Ghost of Flatter Future.

“We’re all going to be crippled one day when terrorists take down the internet and the whole world wide web,” he cynically and curmudgeonly growled. “Mark my words.”

One might say his prediction came true in a recent election, but this week was not that. Our 19 dark hours were not anything close to a digital Armageddon. Compared with the entire information superhighway, horse racing is a cul-de-sac.

A bolt of lightning from Ma Nature is no terrorist. But the electric 2-by-4 that smacked the face of the Equibase/Jockey Club compound might as well have been. It felt like it in our game’s corner of the cyberworld.

Of course, the Twittersphere was kind and gentle through all this.

“It’s 2022. Completely unacceptable.”

“A power outage for more than five hours? Wow. I thought you were located in America, not Uzbekistan.”

“Scary to see how much the racing industry relies on Equibase. It’s pretty much been one of the worst sites on the interweb for years.”

“Kind of a peak racing moment as Equibase, jealous hoarder of all racing information, has site crashed. ... There’s no plan B. We’ll just be in the dark today. Sigh.”

“Equibase probably has their issue being reviewed by a 17-year-old kid at Geek Squad.”

Since so many of these broadsides were hung under noms-de-Tweet with avatars that bore no resemblance to their likely authors, I only could guess how many were written by people named Karen.

I have been on both ends of this. I admit it. I have been that kneejerk whinger who all too frequently loses my head on social media. (See DMs from American and Delta.)

I also have been tasked with manning the complaint department. Like when this site got so popular right after this year’s Kentucky Derby that it slowed down more than Messier.

In short, there is no foolproof system. My cynical friend from Sacramento would vouch for that. Even if more backup generators, redundant host sites and other contraptions built by Leonard and Sheldon and Howard and Raj were piled up like modern-day sandbags, they cost money.

Let’s not forget that a lot of what is on Equibase costs us a grand total of $0.00. Horse bios, thumbnail results, charts, auction histories, entries, work tabs, condition books and stakes nominations are on the arm.

So what if Equibase were to install some uninterrupted power supplies, get them gassed up with the same expensive fuel we put in our cars, set up a backup data center in a subterranean cave in the Nevada desert and hire someone – maybe a 17-year-old kid at the Geek Squad – to make sure Wednesday and Thursday never, ever happen again?

Once that is done, then everyone will be happy, right? Oh, that will be 99 cents for each race chart.

Equibase is like everything we take for granted. We expect lights to be there at the flip of a switch. Water to be there at the turn of a faucet. Adult entertainment to be there at ... well, never mind.

Some things truly are frustrating and without good excuses. Like when a horse runs past the first pole coming out of the gate. How difficult is it to start a stopwatch at that moment and stop it when the horse crosses the finish line? The 17-year-old Geek Squad kid would be overqualified to do that. Still, I have not heard a good excuse for those constant failures.

Sure, Equibase invites proper criticism. Sometimes when it cuts corners, the mistakes are embarrassing and seemingly inexcusable. The alternative, though – not having that information at our fingertips – is stultifying. What if, instead of a thunderstorm, we found out Equibase had gone broke and closed down? A back-up power supply ain’t fixing that.

For three years I lived in Australia, an information wasteland where past performances are little more than someone’s opinionated narratives and some shaky position figures at one or two posts. I longed for U.S. data. Since I returned to America 15 years ago, I have hugged it like a lost dog who finally came home.

I admit I have my own backup systems that came in handy during the outage this week. I have saved past performances for years in the digital folders common to my laptop and phone. I use this website for past records when I want to see at a glance if a horse has raced at a route of distance or on a particular surface. Don’t spread this around, but I even have books.

Some friends who, like me, are in the fast lane to geezerdom still hang on to the printed word and their dead-tree canvases. Unlike those friends, I do not want to be a Luddite. I have been all-in on digital information for at least a quarter century, even if I am not as smart as the I.T. types who would beg to differ.

God forbid the day should come that some terrorist makes Putin’s handiwork from 2016 look meager. Or that another lightning strike should take down Equibase.

But nothing is perfect. And I hope someone reminds me of that the next time I act like a canceled flight is a heinous crime unto humanity.

That reminds me. I think I am going to drive to the Haskell this month. What could go wrong?