The Bottom Line
"2004 The Year In Pictures" is the first DVD released by the Horsephotos team of photojournalists, and it covers most of the important events on the American racing calendar. This is an excellent and cost-effective way to have the entire 2004 season in one convenient DVD, since purchasing race video for all the races listed above would be prohibitively expensive. A great addition to any race fan's DVD library.
Pros
- Convenient format to get the most of the 2004 season on one DVD
- Narration by TV personality Kenny Rice keeps the viewer's attention
- Creative use of pan-and-scan and fading simulates movement in still pictures
Cons
- Photos cannot be extracted from the DVD for use as computer wallpaper or screensavers
- Background music often drowns out the narrator and get repetitive; the tune never changes
Description
- Derby preps including Florida Derby, Santa Anita Derby, Blue Grass, Arkansas Derby, Wood Memorial
- Dubai World Cup at Nad al Sheba: Plesantly Perfect defeats Medaglia d'Oro
- Kentucky Derby: Smarty Jones defeats Lion Heart remaining undefeated
- Preakness Stakes: Smarty does it again
- Belmont Stakes: Birdstone denies Smarty Jones the Triple Crown
- Saratoga highlights including the Travers Stakes
- Arlington Million and Pacific Classic
- Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe from Longchamp in Paris
- Breeders' Cup World Thoroughbred Championships from Lone Star Park in Texas
- Trivia quiz
Guide Review - DVD Review: 2004 The Year in Pictures
In this convenient and compact package, Horsephotos with the Daily Racing Form and the NTRA team up to create this unique format for summarizing a racing season. Although no video is included (except for interviews with jockeys Stewart Elliott and Edgar Prado), the editors creatively made use of panning across and zooming into wide-angle photos, and fading between still shots, to simulate motion in the race footage, and this is supplemented by the live race call (by Dave Johnson for the Triple Crown, Tom Durkin for the Breeders' Cup). Light jazz music plays continously in the background, along with narration by TV personality Kenny Rice. Each of the races above includes photos of the contenders in the paddock or post parade, race coverage, and winner's circle presentation. Other races are covered but do not have the full treatment as these listed. Unfortunately, the photographs cannot be extracted from the DVD for use as computer wallpaper, but this will not diminish one's enjoyment of these excellent photos and this very complete review of what was a very exciting 2004 racing season. You will see the top horses of the year multiple times from various angles. A bonus trivia quiz is included at the end of the DVD to test your recall of the events of last season.
