JC / Railbird

Media

It’s the Same All Over*

Greg Wood on Sir Michael Stoute’s post-Arc reticence:

It was a reminder that for all the good intentions at Racing For Change, the attitude that the punters do not really matter will always have the upper hand until the Stoute generation makes way for younger, less-blinkered trainers.

My only quibble is that it’s about mindset, not age.

*Borrowed from Equidaily.

Posted in Racing on October 6, 2010 / Tagged Media, Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, Sir Michael Stoute, The Uncommunicative, Trainers, Why Won't You Talk?

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Times-Union turf writer Tim Wilkin tries to get trainer Steve Asmussen to comment on Rachel Alexandra’s retirement, without results:

Well, when we got Asmussen on the phone, it was the pefect time to ask what he really felt.

Here is what he said the first time I asked him to comment on Rachel’s retirement:

“At the half-mile pole, I thought Haynesfield had a real good chance to win,” Asmussen said.

I asked him a second time.

Read his entire post for the complete conversation, and the questions it raises.

Posted in Racing on October 2, 2010 / Tagged Media, Questions, Rachel Alexandra, Retirement, Rumors, Speculations, Steve Asmussen

ESPN Is to Sports …

College football fans tuned into ESPN this Saturday will get a chance to see Zenyatta. As part of a Breeders’ Cup Challenge telecast running from 6:30 to 8:00 PM ET on ESPN Classic and ESPN360, ESPN will break in between games at 7:15 PM to air the Lady’s Secret Stakes from Oak Tree at Hollywood Park.

I can’t knock exposure, especially for a champion with a story fit for Oprah and a game that has such loyal fans, but I keep thinking about a comment by Ed on the Plonk post of last week: “it’s hard to believe that it was just 12 years ago that ESPN was still televising the Little Brown Jug LIVE.”

Well into the 1990s, you could say ESPN was a true sports network, with an eclectic line-up that included football, baseball, soccer, golf, bass fishing, and the X Games. If people played it, ESPN aired it. Changes came with ABC/Disney ownership, competition from other networks, and an ambitious expansion plan that rode the rise of cable and the web, turning ESPN into the TV-radio-digital-print behemoth it is now. There’s a downside to this dominance, though, a homogenizing of sport, an emphasis on the popular and lucrative.

Think of it this way: ESPN is to sports as Playboy was to sex.

Like Hugh Hefner’s groundbreaking men’s magazine, ESPN transformed an industry, becoming hugely influential to a generation of young men and radically reshaping their perceived interests. Along the way, it became less a celebration of all that is athletic than a platform for aggregating massive advertiser-friendly audiences. That means fewer small-market sports, whether hockey or horseracing, and more major league sports and specious “news” coverage. When all of sports was a niche, more sporting niches thrived. Gone mainstream, broadly appealing sports “narratives” gain prominence.

What that means for racing is that events such as the Breeders’ Cup need ESPN to reach the largest possible audience of sports fans, but ESPN has no need for horseracing — which is why on Saturday, Zenyatta will be the entertainment between football games, not the main attraction.

It’s not a BC Challenge race, so it won’t be appearing on any ESPN channel, but Blind Luck versus Havre de Grace in the Cotillion Stakes at Philadelphia Park Parx on Saturday looks like a must-watch race. It’ll be the third meeting between the two 3-year-old fillies. Stakes winner Awesome Maria, making her second start of the year, is also entered. The Cotillion is part of the second annual Lady Riders Challenge, a very cool, under-reported event.

Posted in Racing on September 28, 2010 / Tagged Blind Luck, Breeders' Cup, Distaffers, ESPN, Jockeys, Media, Parx, Playboy, Zenyatta