SEVEN DEATHS, FIVE SCRATCHES — TIME FOR NBC TO PRESSURE CONGRESS
The network of a tragic Kentucky Derby was too busy running bourbon ads, showing revelers and, like Churchill Downs, counting profits, when it should summon its journalistic duty and demand reforms
Consider this an urgent, life-and-death mandate for whoever is running NBC Universal these days. Jeff Shell was chief executive before his dismissal last month, when he was accused of pressuring a female CNBC anchor for sex, a Shell Game like few others in network C-suite sleazedom. I’m not sure who is available at 30 Rock to read my communique — summer has begun and the Hamptons beckon, though it’s only May 7 — but I’ll send it anyway.
Want to do something right for America? Something that brings dignity and goodwill to a news-and-entertainment empire after years of scandals ranging from Shell to Matt Lauer to Billy Bush to burying the Harvey Weinstein story? Want to make a Peacock proud after relentlessly charring its feathers?
Here’s how: Pause a lucrative media rights deal with the Kentucky Derby until this disgraceful sport of kings, which is abusing and killing horses at a frequency beyond unconscionable, faces a high-profile Congressional probe. It will be difficult losing the mega-profits, including a Woodford Reserve Bourbon advertising spree that swallowed Saturday’s coverage, but no self-respecting broadcasting executive will keep enabling the carnage until all dirtballs are dragged from the barns and exposed in televised Capitol Hill hearings.
The network went ahead with a record 7 1/2 hours of mostly banal Louisville content. Not surprisingly, NBC treated the endless equine fatality toll — seven dead horses at hallowed Churchill Downs in the time leading up to the 149th Derby, two on race day — like a sidebar to the celebrities, cigars, hats, decadence and abundant alcohol. When journalism-neutered host Mike (Where’s Bob Costas?) Tirico briefly summarized a bittersweet afternoon — “This is an industry under a microscope, a more intense microscope now,” he said, stating the obvious — his words were about a minute and 40 seconds shorter than Mage’s winning time of 2:01.57. There was no serious follow-up from the two analysts sitting beside him, but there was a smiling mention of an upcoming USFL telecast between the Memphis Showboats and Michigan Panthers.
Beyond the phony bubble beneath the Twin Spires, authentic media outlets without Derby business ties were covering the horrific events in detail. Chloe’s Dream was euthanized after suffering a knee injury in the day’s second race, and Freezing Point suffered the same fate after an ankle injury in the eighth race. This after Derby longshot Wild On Ice and Take Charge were euthanized with breakdowns from musculoskeletal injuries, while two more horses died after racing, prompting the suspension of Saffie Joseph Jr. and the scratch of his Derby entrant, Lord Miles. The previous weekend, Code of Kings was put to rest after breaking his neck in a paddock flipping accident.
Are the tragedies primarily a function of barns abusing horses with lethal, unauthorized drugs and greed-motivated, cold-hearted training regimens? Is Churchill Downs also culpable because its surfaces contribute to injuries? All of the above? The sport’s governors claim to have addressed the crisis with multiple bans of Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert and the 10-year suspension of Derby winner Rick Dutrow, who kept syringes loaded with dope in a desk inside his barn. They say more investigations are coming — amid smirks and raised eyebrows from those in the cultural mainstream who still care about a dying sport — with new anti-doping and medication rules expected to launch May 22, according to the Horse Racing Integrity & Safety Authority.
Why have those measures taken so long? Four years have passed since 42 horses died at Santa Anita Park in southern California. Why wait until after a Derby where “Taps” was the appropriate music for the pre-race trumpeter? The sport’s legions of critics, including animal rights activists, never have had more ammunition than now. They, too, should be browbeating NBC.
“I think they should be concerned,” said owner Mike Repole, whose Forte was favored in the Run for the Roses before it became the fifth horse scratched. “These athletes are 1,200-pound athletes running at the highest speed. If every (human) athlete, when they break their leg, they have to be put down — there would be no sports. … There’s a lot less injuries here with legs than in other sports, but here it means that your life is over. Which, God, is as depressing as it gets. People will understand injuries. People won’t understand injuries with death.”
He’s right. We don’t get death.
The concept of proceeding with America’s annual Mint Julep jubilee was grotesque and unfeeling, at the least. The Derby, of course, is huge business for NBC, which needs relevance and revenue during a spring and summer sports lull period in non-Olympics years. The network pays $15 million per year for media rights and recoups the investment with a Super Bowl-like marathon pregame. A 10-year extension runs through 2025, accompanied by rights to the Preakness Stakes. NBC used to carry all Triple Crown races until Fox Sports swept in and intercepted the Belmont Stakes with a $12-million-a-year deal for the next eight years, starting next month.
As long as the networks keep feeding the monsters financially, the tracks will continue to stage colossal events no matter how many animals die. This is where NBC and Fox — though 92-year-old Rupert Murdoch and his son, Lachlan, are threatened in their integrity-challenged kingdom — should intercede and demand the sport stop its funeral pyres before continuing the mega-coverage. Churchill Downs Inc. and Kentucky’s governing body seem to mean business, stepping in to scratch Forte hours before the race. Trainer Todd Pletcher tried to downplay a bruised right foot after a stumble on the track Thursday, but state veterinarians showed up Saturday morning and made the right call, just as the right call was made on Joseph, despite his protests.
“Most definitely I am a scapegoat,” the Florida-based Joseph said before he was banned from the track. “They've had more deaths this week, and here is Saffie, this is the problem. Trust me, it's hard enough that our horses have their issues. But the reality of it is that I run 3,800 horses in the races, and I've never had horses that die from that issue before. They've had injuries but never from something that was unknown. It's unknown what caused it. The tests for the first one hasn't shown anything. I mean, the results with all the bloods, we haven't seen anything, so we don't know what's going on. They don't know what's going on. And the commission doesn’t know what's going on. The commission has found nothing wrong so far. I mean, people all can attest, and here we are with no known answers. and yet Churchill issues this suspension.
“It's like, how could you do that? I mean, how can you do that? It's one reason — they've done it to try to save their image. I mean, it's sad.”
Sad. And exploitative. What they’ve done is protect and save their revenue streams, overflowing after another day of massive media and betting profits. For another Saturday, they succeeded again in promoting a Hollywood, social-elite-on-benders, fear-of-missing-out profile. Closer to the point, Churchill Downs already was reporting record revenue of $559.5 million — based on new sports gambling deals — for this year’s first quarter alone. When in doubt, as leagues in team sports well know, plunge into gambling. As the ultimate wagering endeavor, beyond the Super Bowl, why wouldn’t the Derby embrace DraftKings and FanDuel while closing its own platform, TwinSpires Sportsbook?
But what about the dead horses, gentlemen? As America got wasted and foolishly tried to get wealthy, tragedy hung in the evening Kentucky gloom, as NBC babbled on about the winner. Applaud one of Mage’s owners for addressing the lingering agony. “It’s a very difficult subject to touch on,” Ramiro Restrepo said. “I’m sure there’s going to be some investigations done as to the reason behind that, and hopefully that provides a few more answers. All I can say is we do our best to take care of our horses. We treat them better than we treat our children.”
Maybe they do. Obviously, too many handlers do not. The enabler of this Derby Day sadness, and the endless trail of casualties, is the network that pumps millions into the first Saturday of May and glorifies the pomp and privilege at Churchill Downs.
Emphasis on the Chill.
Attention Jeff Shell’s successor: Either play a role in deep-cleaning the racing cesspool or air something else in its place. But please don’t keep running the bourbon ads, counting your money and winding up the Tirico puppet. Otherwise, NBC is going to kill the peacock, too.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.