A popular Pyrois Media service, our Content Creation service is mostly used to create fresh content for websites. While it is a busy service no matter the time of year or topic, weeks leading up to Thoroughbred sales often pack my to-do list full of writing previews for topics varying from consignment previews to horses on offer by a client’s stallion or in foal to their stallion going through the ring.
At the winter breeding stock sales, the focus for previews when it comes to stallions is writing about those with first in-foal mares or weanlings/short yearlings. With two different categories of stallions to write about at these sales, it can be a hectic time to get them all written and make sure nothing is left out.
Through the years I’ve created steps that streamline the process of every story I write, and just make minor tweaks to the steps depending on the topic. The service is used for a variety of different topics from sales previews to show results and everything in between so not every step will be the same, but the overarching picture remains.
Read below to see the process followed when writing about Jack Christopher’s yearlings at the upcoming Keeneland January Horses of All Ages Sale after his weanlings proved to be popular in November.
Step 1: Catalog Overview
Most of the time at the major sales, a stallion will have quite a few offerings in the category I’m focusing on. To keep the story short enough to keep a reader’s attention, I can’t write about every horse they have going through the ring and and try to keep my list to anywhere from five to seven horses long. If it is a case where a horse only has a small handful of offerings, I may cover all of them, but it depends on a variety of factors.
Deciding who to write about can be a hard task so I have a list of priorities when I pick the horses who go in the stories. This is tweaked a bit for in-foal mare stories, but for stallions with first weanlings/yearlings/2-year-olds, stakes updates and blacktype under their top two dams are given priority.
Step 2: Closer Page Looks
Once I have my list cut down, it’s time to take a closer look at the pages and note anything else that I find important or interesting. This includes looking at any family information that may be pertinent but not super obvious on the page. Related directly to this story, I specifically looked to see if Jack Christopher’s sire Munnings has anything on the pages I was going to write about, because that is a selling point in itself.
Smaller updates are also looked at before I write the story, because they can provide other important information. A few examples are a juvenile winner that wasn’t included when the catalog was printed or a close relative that added another win to an impressive record.
Step 3: Writing & More Research
Once I ideas for what I’ll say about each horse, it’s time to start writing. At this stage, I not only look at the page in front of me, but dig deeper as well. I utilize Equineline, Equibase, and Arion for the job because each can give me more information.
Equineline provides information such as the breeder and if my subject has been sold before (this is information I see more when writing stories for the later yearling sales and juvenile sales than the winter breeding stock sales) and gives me an easy way to look up the same information for a yearling’s siblings. Equibase is utilized to look closer at racing results so I can see if a non-stakes update is worth putting in the story and can also be used to check if any unraced siblings are working toward a start as well. If I have any questions about the cross the yearling is bred on or how deep the family is off the catalog page, that’s where Arion comes in as well.
Step 4: Edits
With that in mind, I always attempt to write a story early the week before a sale or at the earliest – two weeks before a sale. While the catalog is usually posted about a month before the sale takes place, I only do other work with the catalog at that point and not write anything until closer to sale day. Most sale companies don’t post any of their outs until a week or two before the sale starts so writing too early can cause you to write about horses who won’t even be on the sales grounds. Updates are also added to the catalog a few weeks out so it makes sense to wait.
Videos and photos are popular at Thoroughbred sales so when I’m editing, I’ll also add in any video links that are available to show off the yearling. Editing is usually the quickest part of the process with any delays usually coming from fact checking myself or adding last second updates that appeared after I wrote the story.
Step 5: Publish
Once edits are done, I often publish immediately so anyone who finds it useful has access to it as far in advance of the sale as possible.
It also depends on the client if it will be posted on social media or not with some opting to have stories posted and some preferring to go a different way with the sale information they’ll post on social media.
Want to improve your brand’s visibility in 2025, but not sure where to start? Pyrois Media can help! Email Melissa@PyroisMedia.com to find out how to make this your best year yet.
“Melissa has been producing content for the Coolmore America website since we engaged her during October 2019 and we have been very impressed with her work. Melissa has an excellent knowledge of racing and breeding which is reflected in her writing. Professional and diligent, she’s a pleasure to deal with and comes highly recommended by us.
– Richard Henry, Coolmore