Overnight ratings for the Saturday Kentucky Derby broadcast on NBC skyrocketed this year while betting and attendance figures for the race suffered in comparison with last year’s record-setting event because of poor weather at the Louisville, Ky., track.
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ELMONT, N.Y. – After initially saying he didn’t plan to run Kentucky Derby fourth-place finisher Normandy Invasion back in the Preakness, trainer Chad Brown on Monday reserved the right to change his mind.
Equine photographer Jason Scott Stewart, 39, died unexpectedly last Tuesday. The cause of Stewart’s death remains undetermined.
A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, Stewart worked full-time with Pat Lang Photography for 21 years covering racing as assistant track photographer at Keeneland, Turfway Park and River Downs.
Recognized for his outstanding photography skill, he also cocovered five Kentucky Derbies and a Preakness.
Betting on U.S. races in April was up slightly compared with betting in the same month last year, according to Equibase, while purses declined 3.4 percent as subsidies from slot machines continued to dip.
Handle on Thoroughbred races at U.S. tracks was $865.2 million in April, up 0.4 percent compared with $861.8 million in handle in April 2012, according to Equibase. Meanwhile, purses dipped from $84.4 million to $82.0 million, even though race days jumped 2.4 percent, from 371 to 380.
The overnight rating for the last hour of the Kentucky Derby broadcast on NBC on Saturday was up 16 percent compared with the overnight rating for the same portion of the telecast last year, NBC Sports said on Sunday.
The overnight rating was a 10.4, NBC said, equaling the best rating for the broadcast in 21 years. Share, a measure of the number of televisions in use at the time that were tuned to the broadcast, was a 23, up 15 percent compared with the same figure for 2012.
Last year, ratings and share were up slightly compared with the 2011 broadcast.
Sun, 05/05/2013 - 11:35
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Orb, the Kentucky Derby winner, came out of the race in good condition, trainer Shug McGaughey said Sunday morning at Churchill Downs, and he will continue his bid to be the first Triple Crown winner in 35 years when he makes his next start in the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico on May 18.
“I can’t wait to get there,” McGaughey said at Barn 43.
[DRF LIVE AT THE KENTUCKY DERBY: News updates, photos, videos]
Jockey T.D. Houghton will always remember the day Orb won the Kentucky Derby. Some five hours before Orb rallied in the mud to win the 139th Derby at Churchill Downs, Houghton collected his 5,000th career victory at Thistledown.
Houghton reached the milestone when he rode the 7-year-old gelding Mambo Galliano ($3.20) to a 6 ½-length victory in a $4,000 claiming race with his first mount on Thistledown’s card in race 2. He added victory number 5,001 with Storm Love ($6.40) in the first race on Saturday night’s program at Mountaineer Racetrack.
Results and recap articles for the 2013 Kentucky Derby card at Churchill Downs.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Lou Cavalaris Jr., the prominent Canadian trainer who was inducted into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame in 1995, died Thursday at age 89.
Cavalaris died at his home, apparently of a heart attack.
Though perhaps best known as the trainer of Dancer’s Image, who was stripped of a first-place finish in the 1968 Kentucky Derby after testing for phenylbutazone, banned at the time, Cavalaris was Canada’s leading trainer in races won six times and in 1966 led all trainers in North America with 175 winners.