Is the Triple Crown losing its relevance? On this week's TDN Writers' Room presented by Keeneland, Bill Finley, Randy Moss and Zoe Cadman dive into the state of the series and how it might be fixed. While the team agrees that the upcoming GI Preakness Stakes may offer some excellent betting opportunities, they discussed why the field is lacking “star quality.”
Donna Barton Brothers joins the crew as this week's Gainesway Guest of the Week. The jockey-turned-racing analyst is currently on her farewell tour of the Triple Crown. Saturday's Preakness will be her last appearance on NBC after 26 years of coverage.
During this year's Kentucky Derby, Brothers was the only NBC analyst to correctly pick Golden Tempo (Curlin) as the winner. She told the Writers' Room that she took a liking to the colt after catching up with Cherie DeVaux a few days before the big event. After digging further into his past performances, Brothers decided the son of Curlin was poised to take a step forward, but she knew her logic would be difficult to explain briefly on live television.
“On NBC, we get like 10 seconds to talk about who we like and why,” she continued. “I thought all day about what I was going to say about why I like this horse because the story was long. Randy can tell you that three days prior to the race, I had picked Golden Tempo as my horse in the meeting. But given my interviewing Cherie during the walkover I decided to just say, 'Look, I'm going to root for the female to win the Kentucky Derby. I'm taking Golden Tempo.'”
Brothers shares stories from her transition from the saddle to broadcasting, noting that her second career truly began to click once she started conducting interviews on horseback.
“When I was standing there doing a hit, I would think like, 'Wait, I have the microphone here. What do I do with this hand? Do put it in my pocket? Do I lean against a rail? Do I act cool like Bob Costas?' I didn't know what to do with my other extremities. When I was on a horse, all that nervous energy was taken because I was riding a horse.”
Brothers also reflects on her mother, Patti Barton, one of the first women to become a licensed jockey in the U.S. She discussed what her mother thinks of the next generation of trailblazing women, like Brothers herself and trainer Cherie DeVaux, excelling in the sport today. Brothers shares why she decided now was the right time to retire, what she will miss most about covering the biggest days in racing and her excitement to watch her successor, Andie Biancone, take over the reins.
Finally, Brothers said that it was too early to share her final Preakness picks, but she did give a few hints.
“I will say that I'm not going to pick anybody from the 10 hole out because they're going to be disadvantaged at Laurel,” she said. “It also happens that the two horses I'm leaning toward right now are in the one hole and the six hole. So let's root for Brittany Russell, another female, to win the Preakness Stakes. She's got Taj Mahal (Nyquist) in there, who's undefeated. Steve Asmussen has already won the Preakness Stakes twice and he had considered the Kentucky Derby with Chip Honcho (Connect) and then decided to give him a little bit more time. He breaks from the six hole. So I'm probably going to pick one of those two, but I haven't decided which one yet.”
The Writers' Room team went through each contender in the 14-horse Preakness field, highlighting a few of their top picks to wrap up this week's episode.
The Fastest Horses of the Week, sponsored by Winstar, was Otter Mischief (Maximus Mischief), who earned a 106 Beyer Speed Figure with his 8 1/4-length win at Parx Racing on May 5. The TDN Writers' Room is also sponsored by the PHBA, 1/ST TV, and West Point Thoroughbreds.
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