This past Wednesday, lightning struck and caused the Jockey Club (TJC) in Lexington, Kentucky to lose power. All systems were down due to no backup processes being in place.
Power was finally restored Thursday afternoon after 19 hours of the Equibase system being down.
TJC updated users via Twitter for 19 hours
The Jockey Club was updating their sports betting enthusiasts via Twitter, starting on Wednesday evening when systems initially went down.
“The Jockey Club’s Kentucky office lost power due to a lightning strike to a nearby transformer,” the first tweet said. “All internal systems, including the internet and email, are down. We will keep our customers up to date via Twitter.”
A follow-up tweet a few minutes later explained which systems were down due to the outage:
“This includes Equibase, BloodHorse, InCompass, and Equineline. InCompass customers can contact Chris Dobbins at (281) 793-2625 for additional updates.”
Roughly 12 hours after the initial tweet, the Jockey Club followed up on Twitter with an update:
“Our KY office is operating on generators after a power issue. Certain technology infrastructure is not operating, and key equipment will be replaced this morning. We are considering a “fail over” to our DR site. Thank you for your patience. We will update you in two hours.”
Another three hours later, the only composed parties were the racehorses. Moreover, the Jockey Club still had no new information in their next follow-up tweet:
“Following the power issues last night, TJC is operating on backup power. Once our database is back online, we expect services to be restored over the next few hours. We will update you as each service is restored through the course of the day. @Equibase @equineline @BloodHorse”
By noon Thursday, systems were finally back to normal. The Jockey Club finally announced in two respective tweets that both BloodHorse and the Jockey Club Registry were back online.
Outage reached further than Kentucky TJC
Kentucky’s Jockey Club wasn’t the only location feeling the residual technology woes of the Lexington lightning strike.
In a Thursday morning tweet, the Maryland Jockey Club (MJC) explained that, since InCompass was experiencing a widespread outage, MJC would be taking entries with pen and paper.
“Good Morning Horsemen, we are taking entries today for Sunday, July 10th. Currently, InCompass the online track system is down nationwide so we are taking entries by hand, please bear with us. This also means papers cannot be moved as well as anything needed from the Bookkeeper.”
StabelDuel also tweeted on Thursday that the Equibase outage led them to cancel a handicapping contest:
“ATTN PLAYERS: Due to the @equibase delay, we’ve made the tough decision to cancel @HSIndyRacing contests today but will honor the Delaware contests. We’ve also added a Penn $10 in anticipation of everything back up and running prior to 6pm tonight.”
Power outage crippled horseracing bettors
Since Equibase handles all records for North American horseracing, that one lightning strike meant widespread effects.
The 19-hour outage meant users were restricted from viewing critical information for betting. No horse bios were available, no past performances (PPs), and morning lines for previous races were not viewable.
Director of marketing for Brisnet, Nazrana Dixon, was asked during the outage about info on Las Alamitos races past performances.
“Unfortunately, we are currently not receiving any new data from Equibase,” she responded. “So we won’t have those PPs until they get everything resolved.”
Dixon even predicted that upcoming weekend races might be impacted.
“There are probably going to be some tracks we can’t offer tomorrow/Saturday,” she had said. “But we’ll see.”
Angry users took to Twitter during the outage
Throughout the outage, users and TJC Twitter followers had a lot to say about how The Jockey Club handled the situation.
“What major company would not have a backup plan for this type of issue?” one Twitter user said, criticizing the emergency response of TJC. “Horse Racing is only a billion dollar business.”
Another Twitter user pointed out that TJC’s Equibase monopoly in the horseracing industry was the root of the response problem.
“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.”
Other users simply criticized the Equibase website as having longstanding issues.
“Scary to see how much the racing industry relies on Equibase,” one tweeter said. “It’s pretty much been one of the worst sites on the interweb for years.”
