ESPN Telecast

Originally Posted by Rileyoriley

After I had placed my bets at the local teletheater, I came home to watch the ESPN broadcast with my daughter and others (we had a small B.C. party). Other than my daughter and myself, none of the others knew any of the horses except Bernardini. We had a little game where everyone picked a horse in each race, threw in $1, and whichever horse finished in front of the others won the pool. It's fun for the non-racing fans and they seem to enjoy it. In years past, they've picked their horses from the post parade. These people that I'm trying to get involved in horseracing biggest complaint was "why aren't they showing us the horses"? While they did think Mayne's piece was funny and the gate piece interesting ( I liked it too), I still think there was enough time to at least show a post parade.

you really said it all. show the horses ! The production folks lost site of horses. It became too much of a slick production of magazine pieces, a classic advertising mantra of selling the sizzle and not the steak ! When your friends who don't know horse racing are saying " why aren't they showing the horses", that says it all. Its not just us hardcores saying it .