The race portion of the Kentucky Derby broadcast on NBC on Saturday drew a final rating of 9.7 with a 21 share, up 8 percent from the rating last year and translating to approximately 16.2 million viewers, NBC said on Tuesday.
The rating was tied for the co-second-highest figure since 1992, when the Derby was broadcast on ABC, NBC said. The 2010 broadcast had a higher rating than this year’s edition, which tied with the rating in 2009.
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.
How the 139th Kentucky Derby unfolded Saturday, May 4, at Churchill Downs:
Normandy Invasion finds himself in tight shortly after the break as he gets squeezed between Golden Soul and Mylute while Orb gets away cleanly from the auxiliary starting gate. [Photo: Jenny Burgos]
Score one for the old school.
Orb’s stretch-running victory in the 139th Kentucky Derby was not only trainer Shug McGaughey’s first success in the race, but also a vindication of a philosophy that today seems almost quaint. Whenever the Hall of Famer was asked why he had come to the Derby for only the second time since 1989, he never said that this is the race that every trainer aspires to win. His answer was always on the lines of, “The horse brought me here.”
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.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – There are times that the best horse does not win a given race. The horse might encounter trouble, either of his own doing or caused by another horse impeding him. Still other times he might lose because another runner capitalizes with a perfect trip.
The Kentucky Oaks was one of these bad-luck races for the best horse, with favored Dreaming of Julia being sideswiped at the start and taken out of her preferred up-close running style, which contributed to her fourth-place finish, and seemingly victory.
Sitting in the interview room at Churchill Downs on Saturday evening, Ogden Mills "Dinny" Phipps averted his gaze to watch a nearby replay of the 139th Kentucky Derby over and over. Each time, the result was the same—Orb, the homebred colt he owns in partnership with his cousin, Stuart S. Janney III, splashing home in the mud to overpower a strong field of 3-year-olds in America's most famed race.
The replay wasn't getting old, though.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – There are times when horse racing can produce maddening, inexplicable results, waved away with a shrug and a common refrain, “That’s horse racing.”
Then there are times when everything comes together as if pre-ordained. The best jockey, on the best horse, prepared by the best trainer, bred by a family that has been competing at the top of racing for generations, wins the Kentucky Derby.[:slideshow-right:]
That, too, is horse racing.
Total betting on the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs on Saturday was $130.5 million, according to the race chart, down 2.2 percent from the record total of $133.5 million bet last year but still the second-highest figure of all time.
