Hank hates Jessica?
 

Interesting after Hank did not even acknowledge her yesterday she's reporting on her own. Wonder what happened??

Spyder

Hank doesn't seem to understand where he is. The expression on his face when Kenny and Kurt Russell started talking about Dreamer really was hilarious. Maybe they were afraid Jessica would be accidentally injured by an arm spasm.

That dude Tessitore is a moron. You'd think after all this time, he'd know his stuff, but his errors are constant. Repeatedly saying Fabulous Strike's trainer is Todd Pletcher.. Jeez.

Denman: "Longshot leader Fatal Bullet".. 5-1 longshot?

Nice to hear Moss say before the race that Lute was too injured to win this. The idiocy never ends.

Good call on Lute, Steve!

There's always the live stream which has had stellar commentary.

Watching that too. Good tunes between races.

but he's well-dressed. :rolleyes:

Is he the guy who keeps saying Curlin is the horse of the world and if he wins, he's claimed the "title" of Best Horse of the Past 25 years? I can't deal with him anymore.

on a different note

Hank just picked my horses for his exacta:wf

I would have never ever made that bet if I knew he was going to pick 'em
well, he didn't pick Spring House in the exacta so I can still win because he can lose

that's the one. still better than that british dude they feel the need to give air time to each year.

oh, now it's 'one of the greatest of all time'.


amazing.

How do they come up with 25 years? Why not 26 years? or 27 years??

I agree that he may be best horse of the last 2 years......maybe....

You hardcore horse racing fan's should try using your mute button on the TV, you might be a lot happier people in life.

Understand that ESPN/ABC owns Tessitore, he is ESPN's choice to do this show, along with the morons they use as guests. This is not a choice of the BC or any horse racing people. He is normally a boxing guy, and has done a few other sports.

The deal is, ESPN is trying to draw viewers to their thoroughbred horse racing shows. By doing so, you had best make it attractive to the non-thoroughbred fan. Sell it any way you want, but viewership is the name of the game.

Who asked for your opinion?

AMEN

The voices in my head said it was OK to do so....

How exactly does Joe Tessitore or making your broadcasts unwatchable bring in fans? I have heard this rubbish so many times but if they covered other sports this way they would be roasted for it. If they want to have the weepy features fine but show the freakin races so they can be seen and tone the ridiclous hyperbole down.

tessitore is a local guy- as well as a joke

AMEN

He's from Arcadia? I didn't know that.

excuse me...... Local for me

I wasn't promoting Tessitore, or the job he does. Although I do not find him all that bothersome, save the over hyping but that is today's society. If something is not near death, record breaking, greatest of all time, etc, people don't really watch the event(i.e. the PGA tour now that Tiger is not playing).

But I what was saying is, take your hard earned racing knowledge and throw it out the window, maybe he actually does make the broadcast enjoyable for the non-hardcore racing degenerates??

How does making statements that are obviously wrong, making the races unwatchable by constantly changing angles so that you cant even tell where on the racetrack they are, ignoring logical contenders, having this fantasyland 'analysis' of the races, and plugging every washed up and B list 'star' around do stupid things like call the riders to thier horses, not have a serious discussion of the surface or how it is playing, etc...make a telecast enjoyable for anyone? Since when is the watching public so stupid that they are easily amused by obvious gimmicks? the most popular broadcast sport (the NFL) is also the one sport where the games are dissected (right or wrong) as the viewers have actually watched a game before. Why do they assume that ANYONE watching has never seen a horserace before and will be enthralled by the blimp shot. What other sports do they do this with?

Apparently you do not watch much television.


The reason the NFL or college football are the most watched is because they are team sports, people enjoy team sports much more so than individual sports. People can relate to their team, their city, their roots, etc... this is the reason for the popularity, it has little to do with the quality of the broadcast team.

As far as assuming that no one has seen a horse race, I agree that the dumbing down to an audience can have a negative effect on your supporting hardcore audience, but THEY know YOU will watch regardless. BECAUSE YOU ARE HARDCORE!!

This still makes no sense. You need to dumb down the event or people wont watch?

By the way the reason that the NFL and college football are the most watched is because people are betting on them. The relates to your city crap is what the NFL and NCAA want you to believe. Of the people who watched Boise State/San Jose State last night, how many people were watching because they relate to Idaho or San Jose or do you think more people related to Boise State minus 7?

What I was saying is that on football broadcasts they use "technical" terms and assume that the viewer isnt an idiot and has a clue about what is going on. ESPN's horseracing coverage barely does either. To be honest Fox's baseball broadcasts arent that much better but at least they dont use blimp shots while guys are running the bases.

I think the dumbing down theory has merit. Seems like that is doing with the election and that's working just fine.

Maybe next debate they'll use a blimp (Nice view of Palin's blimps)

The coverage was poor to say the least and if you were new to the sport today and yesterday would not help your enjoyment or knowledge of the sport

As a hardcore fan I agree with you, but as a person who understands how TV and advertising works, I have to disagree with you. Crap?? This is the way it is homie, are you telling me that all the people who watch NFL or College teams are only watching because they have action. I know there is a lot of action going on, but you do not understand how high the viewership numbers are, and 90% or higher are not gambling on the games.

The people who watched that game watched because it WAS THE ONLY sporting event on TV at that time.

I actually kind of like the overhead shots of the races. It gives me another angle that I normally do not get to see when watching TVG or the feeds at the OTB.

you should have resorted to your captain obvious pic.

hardcore fans are the only ones watching. i doubt having people call males 'she', confusing trainers, and hyping horses as being some of the best evah will make people who don't care about racing suddenly decide to tune in, kurt russell or no kurt russell.

Well said

NO, the majority of hardcore fans were at tracks and OTB's across the country betting on the BC. So again, you are wrong.

i'm hardcore, i was at home. otbs/tracks aren't exactly doable for a lot of people.

They are for most of the 'hardcore" fans I have ever met...

Maybe our definition of "hardcore" is different.

If showing up in person's the qualification, I guess Stacy Keibler is hardcore. Hardcore racing fan by day, soft-core reality show dance-porn personality by night. If she showed up at your average OTB, maybe you'd get an increase in the kind of fans that wager.

yeah 90% of viewers dont have action of the games...Please tell me more.

I am not saying anything as a 'hardcore fan'. NO ONE I know likes the way these events are being shown. And since the ratings on these shows have done nothing but go down maybe one of the morons who design these broadcasts should start listening to us idiots who just dont understand why horse racing has to be portrayed as some kind of gimmick game show instead of a real sport with real people betting real money. But please continue to tell us that the "general public" is enthralled with Hanks Bank and the space shuttle shots. Because god forbid the "general public and nonhardcore" fans are just flocking to the watch the races....

I think Hank will may be dead soon, so we don't have to deal with that garbage much longer..

The rest of your points I agree with.

and that's an excellent point as well. they continue to have bad telecasts, and they continue to go downhill in ratings.

Well, I believe educating your viewers intelligently is the best way to increase their interest in the game.

LOL the guy that looks like Sherlock Holmes?

I normally don't get PO'd at stuff like this, but I thought it was disgraceful for ESPN and ABC to come on air about 5 minutes before post time for the Female Sprint and the Marathon. The 9th at Aqueduct on a wintry day gets more talk pre-race than those two races did.

I still thought (even though I think racing should be run on dirt or turf, nothing in between) that this years BC was really excellent in terms of seeing excellent performances from very good horses. I guess you could say the outcome would be different for the Female Sprint on dirt, but Stardom Bound (although most here were trying to bet against her) was the best going into her race and obviously so was Zenyatta. Perhaps Sky Diva would have done better on dirt (love here, but I admittedly was rooting for SB), though.

Danzig, what did you think of Music Note's performance? Obviously Zenyatta won with ears pricked, but I was really happy. She handled the track fine - in fact, made her usual excellent move (too bad a monster was following her) and ran hard. Cocoa Beach also ran very well. I guess Proud Spell has the title locked up, although it might be a close vote. I hope MN runs next year, but I have serious doubts about the Sheikh. It's getting to the point that I can't root for any Indy under the Darley or Godolphin banner.