With apparently every ESPN and ABC employee assigned to Saturday’s Belmont Stakes broadcast, with the exception of the guy who runs the coffee wagon, maybe the network lost track of who was doing what. Like, say, exploring the fact that Big Brown’s trainer regularly injected the favourite with steroids or that there were other horses in the race.
Or maybe the network was so thrilled at the prospect of covering the first Triple Crown winner in 30 years it kind of lost sight of what it was supposed to do.
Even though it’s no secret that Big Brown has been on the juice for some time and even though injecting horses with steroids is legal in three states, the issue is controversial enough that it should have played a bigger role leading up to the race.
In fact, the word was raised only once in the 90-minute lead-up to the race. That came when commentator Randy Moss said much had been made of the issue but that Big Brown didn’t get his June injection.
The message appeared to be no injection this month, no issue.
No steroids – no victory, either…
Apparently the author (Chris Zelkovich) doesn’t listen to ESPN radio or watch ESPN. This issue was discussed quite a bit in the days leading up to the race. In fact I would say that it was the media coverage that led to Big Brown’s trainer deciding not to inject him with steroids this month.
Yeah, ESPN did cover the steroid issue leading up to the event, but kinda skirted it in ABC’s 100 minute run up to the race itself. Instead, there was a ton of syrupy, annoying human interest pieces (Jockey’s son’s illness; trainer’s daughter’s something-or-other). Typical ABC Sports coverage.
Sports coverage should be in quotes. Sometime in the 60’s I think, the networks got the idea into their heads that you cannot get women to watch sports..but you can get them to watch a sports themed soap opera…so it’s been “up close and personal” ever since…the Olympics being the easiest example..months of soaps before..then more during…and even some new ones then, as the feedback comes in on stories actually developing out of competition for medals rather than tears. (There are always a couple of tearjerkers that the networks seem to miss in the run-up to the events).
I’m sure ABC would like it better if they could do the NBA finals like the horse race. 100 minutes of fluffing and then just broadcast the last 2 minutes of the games…. As it was..last night they had trouble squeezing their sob story of the night in during game breaks…^_^
The steroid use was no secret, but my wife thought the race results were suspicious and I have to agree with her. Some people benefited big time.
Didja hear that kids? Forget your steroids and you ran also. I read it on DU.
This is one of the reasons I never bother with horse betting. There is simply too many ways for insiders to cheat.