GS Moves Donn for TV Show

racinggal
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GS Moves Donn for TV Show Jan 11, 2014 14:12:14 GMT -5

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Post by racinggal on Jan 11, 2014 14:12:14 GMT -5

I really hope this Fox TV series does well. Racing needs positive stories!

Date of Donn, Gulfstream Park Turf moved for television

Gulfstream Park announced it has moved the Grade 1, $500,000 Donn Handicap and Grade 1, $300,000 Gulfstream Park Turf Handicap to Sunday, February 9, to help kick off The Jockey Club Tour on Fox Sports 1.

The Donn and Gulfstream Park Turf were to be run originally on Saturday, February 8. Gulfstream's program for February 9 will now include those races as well as Grade 3, $150,000 Hurricane Bertie.

"While we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, we believe this partnership with The Jockey Club and Fox Television gives Thoroughbred racing, Florida racing, horsemen and Gulfstream Park added exposure," said Gulfstream Park President Tim Ritvo. "Kicking off The Jockey Club Tour on Fox with two Grade 1 races that historically attract the finest Thoroughbreds in training is something we're proud of sharing with those throughout the world."

I think was posted but for those that didn't see it
Press Release from the Jockey Club last August

FOX Sports 1 Features Top Thoroughbred Races in Newly Created Series

New Package Premieres Feb. 2014 from Gulfstream Park
New York – FOX Sports and The Jockey Club announced today a multi-year agreement to air prominent graded stakes races starting in 2014 from many of horse racing’s best known tracks on FOX Sports 1, America’s new sports network launching Saturday, Aug. 17.

The newly created package of nationally televised races consists of up to 10 telecasts per year. Each telecast includes two top stakes races featuring the leading horses in North America.

The agreement also includes international and Spanish-language rights, including the ability to air races on FOX Deportes, the nation’s leading Spanish-language sports network

The announcement was made by FOX Sports Executive Vice President of Production and Executive Producer John Entz and The Jockey Club Chairman Ogden Mills Phipps.

“We’re proud to partner with The Jockey Club and to place a bet on the future of Thoroughbred racing,” said Entz. “FOX Sports 1 is all about making sports more fun, and few events in sports are as much fun as a day at a great racetrack. Our partnership with The Jockey Club highlights the elements that make horse racing fun: the power and grace of the Thoroughbred, the challenging puzzle of handicapping, and the social aspect of a day at the races. We look forward to showcasing the highest level of competition in one of the most storied of all sports.”

“The Jockey Club is thrilled to be joining forces with FOX Sports to showcase many of this country’s most prestigious races before a national television audience,” said Phipps. “Increasing the national television presence of Thoroughbred racing continues to be a key component of our fan retention and development efforts under the America’s Best Racing banner, and it will be gratifying to see Thoroughbred racing alongside Major League Baseball, college basketball, college football, NASCAR, and UFC events on the new FOX Sports 1.”

The race series features graded stakes races from some of the most historic racetracks in North America, including Del Mar, Gulfstream Park, Keeneland, Santa Anita Park and Woodbine as well as the race tracks of the New York Racing Association.

The new series premieres on FOX Sports 1 on Sunday, February 9, 2014, from Gulfstream Park in Hallandale, Florida and features the Grade 1 Donn Handicap and the Grade 1 Gulfstream Park Turf Handicap. The complete 2014 schedule of races will be released at a later date.

The race series spotlights many horses that previously competed in Triple Crown races.

Evelyn
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GS Moves Donn for TV Show Jan 23, 2014 20:37:47 GMT -5

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Post by Evelyn on Jan 23, 2014 20:37:47 GMT -5

Would it have really mattered of the tracks that refused to move races to Sunday had done so?

Steven Crist: Jockey Club Tour on Fox a missed opportunity
By Steven Crist
DRF

When the Jockey Club announced last August that it was sponsoring nine one-hour racing telecasts on Fox Sports 1 this year, and that “the race series spotlights many horses that previously competed in Triple Crown races,” fans, including this one, began looking forward to something resembling the American Championship Racing Series of a generation ago: an organized series of America’s most important dirt races for older horses leading to the Breeders’ Cup Classic at season’s end.

When the list of races was finally released this week, the lineup was something completely different – a mishmash of nine disconnected races in various divisions, most of them on the grass and few of them among anyone’s candidates for a meaningful series of the sport’s important races for older horses.

The lone common denominator among the ACRS of 1991-93 and the Jockey Club Tour on Fox of 2014 is the Donn Handicap, the kickoff leg of both series. The ACRS then wended its way, with a few year-to-year variations, through the most important nine- and 10-furlong dirt events on the calendar: the Santa Anita Handicap, Oaklawn Handicap, Pimlico Special, Hollywood Gold Cup, Iselin, Pacific Classic, and Woodward.

This time, things get curiouser and curiouser after the Donn, without a single other dirt race for older males on the entire calendar. Instead of ever seeing the likes of Will Take Charge or Mucho Macho Man again after the Donn, we instead will take a magical mystery tour through the Dubai World Cup, the Blue Grass, the Man o’ War, United Nations, Eddie Read, Saratoga Special, Sword Dancer, and Woodbine Mile. If you’re keeping score, that’s five grass races, two on synthetic, and just two on dirt – the Donn and, believe it or not, the Grade 2 Saratoga Special at 6 1/2 furlongs for 2-year-olds.

That imbalance may or may not be addressed when the rest of the schedule is released – there will be a secondary race added to each telecast – but it’s clear that this tour will not include any of the sport’s important dirt races for older horses beyond the Donn.

If the idea was to showcase the variety of racing in different divisions, that hasn’t happened either. There’s nothing for older fillies, a shame in a year when Beholder versus Princess of Sylmar could be a great storyline. A taste of the Triple Crown is fine, but why the Blue Grass, the weakest Grade 1 Derby prep, a race that has lost most of its significance since being switched to Polytrack, and one that rarely attracts any Derby favorites?

The closest thing we get to continuity is in the less-than-compelling bracket of midseason long-distance turfers that runs in the Man o’ War, United Nations, and Sword Dancer, none of them as important as the absent Arlington Million. We’ll doubtless be told that these are important international events when the reality is that they are opportunities for American turf horses to rack up Grade 1 credentials before the superior Europeans show up at Arlington or in the fall to win the most important grass prizes.

The problem is not that anyone is saying with a straight face that this is the best possible series of races, but that the ever-dysfunctional racing industry could not line up its own ducks. With Fox airtime available only on pre-football Sundays, tracks would have had to move signature races from Saturday to Sunday. Gulfstream agreed, moving the Donn from Saturday, Feb. 8, to Sunday, Feb. 9, but the proprietors of other races such as the Santa Anita Handicap, Arlington Million, and Whitney declined to do so.

It’s unclear whether the project got started too late to make schedule adjustments or whether tracks are being unreasonably stubborn. Either way, it’s the same depressing story of an industry that can’t seem to work together to put its best foot forward and accomplish its real goals.

Nine additional hours of any nationally televised racing is better than nothing, but the way this inaugural lineup turned out is a massive missed opportunity. The same needs exist today as when the ACRS was formed: to showcase the nation’s best older horses in the most important races, to incent horses to stay in training with enhanced bonuses and purses, and to foster competition among the same group of horses throughout a season so that more casual fans might begin to follow them.

The inaugural Tour schedule does none of those things – but there’s always next ye

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GS Moves Donn for TV Show Jan 23, 2014 20:58:37 GMT -5

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Post by Deleted on Jan 23, 2014 20:58:37 GMT -5

I don't know if it would make a difference, but traditionally a track's biggest races have been run on Saturdays and Sunday handle for the most part has been lower than Saturdays.

For example, two Saturdays ago (I'm skipping this last weekend - Sunshine Millions) with two relatively unimportant (even though Graded) stakes were run, the handle was $12.2M. The following day it was $8.2M. Those two stakes certainly didn't generate a $4M handle.

Similarly, this past weekend with Grade 2 stakes on both days, Santa Anita Saturday handle was $12M, Sunday was $9M, the previous weekend Saturday was $10.5M and Sunday was $9.0M.

I'm not surprised that track owners refused to move their top stakes to Sunday for an untested series on a relatively new sports channel.

Evelyn Admin Posts: 5,905	GS Moves Donn for TV Show Jan 23, 2014 21:28:44 GMT -5 Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by Evelyn on Jan 23, 2014 21:28:44 GMT -5 But there was football this past weekend!

Deleted Deleted Member Posts: 0	GS Moves Donn for TV Show Jan 23, 2014 22:36:51 GMT -5 Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by Deleted on Jan 23, 2014 22:36:51 GMT -5 Not in Florida or Southern California....

Jon
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GS Moves Donn for TV Show Jan 28, 2014 0:59:56 GMT -5

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Post by Jon on Jan 28, 2014 0:59:56 GMT -5

Paulick weighs in. Didn't know about the TVG connection. Damn - please, not Shrupp or even worse, Gino LOL

NEW TV DEAL: FOX SERIES SHOULD BENEFIT RACING
by Ray Paulick

Getting FOX Sports involved with horse racing is a good thing. The last time this happened was 1999, when the National Thoroughbred Racing Association launched a five-race series on the network called “NTRA Champions on Fox.” The network brought creativity and enthusiasm to its coverage of a sport that was in need of an infusion of fresh blood in how it was portrayed on the airwaves. That venture ended after only a couple of years. It was fun while it lasted.

The television landscape has changed immensely since then.

ESPN used to be the only full-time sports network. It added to the flagship; there is now ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN whatever.

Then along came the NBC Sports Network, the CBS Sports Network, and most recently, FOX Sports 1 and FOX Sports 2. There are almost more sports networks than there are sports.

The explosion of sports networks has created great opportunities for sports seeking television exposure, horse racing being one of them. But exposure comes at a cost — literally. You have to pay your way on, which is what The Jockey Club has done with its “The Jockey Club Tour on FOX” series that launches Feb. 9 with the Grade 1 Donn Handicap from Gulfstream Park. It’s part of a financial commitment from The Jockey Club, along with the America’s Best Racing grass roots promotion of the sport to a younger crowd.

As Steven Crist pointed out recently in Daily Racing Form, the new series on FOX is not a reincarnation of the long-lamented American Championship Racing Series, which was a structured series of races for older horses beginning in winter and ending in late summer. But it wasn’t intended to be ACRS, the sequel. Getting the kind of cooperation among tracks AND horsemen to participate in that kind of series today is virtually impossible.

“The Jockey Club Tour on FOX” is a series of Saturday and Sunday afternoon programs that will give some exposure to the sport from some of the continent’s (and the world’s) best horseracing venues, including Meydan in Dubai, Keeneland in Kentucky, Belmont Park and Saratoga in New York, Monmouth Park in New Jersey, and Woodbine in Canada. It’s not going to bring us millions of new fans, but it might make us a bit more relevant in the busy sports landscape.

David Nathanson, the general manager and COO of FOX Sports 1 and 2, knows a bit about televising horse racing. He served as president of TVG from 2005-2009, so it won’t be surprising to see some familiar faces on the FOX Sports telecasts of horse racing from that network.

It also won’t be surprising to see gambling discussed during “The Jockey Club Tour on FOX” broadcasts. That was a major hurdle when the Disney Co.-owned ESPN covered horse racing. There was little talk of odds, exotic bets, payoff, etc. I’m betting you’ll see some changes in that regard on FOX.

It would have been nice to have races like the Santa Anita Handicap or the Arlington Million on the series, but getting the proper date didn’t work for the former and the latter was tied to a commitment to WGN television for at least another year.

This new series doesn’t mean there won’t be additional horse racing on television throughout the year. The New York Racing Association and Breeders’ Cup are believed to be in negotiations to get some major races on NBC Sports in the second half of the year. And that’s a good thing, too.

When it comes to showcasing horse racing on television, the more networks the merrier.

GS Moves Donn for TV Show

Post by racinggal on Jan 11, 2014 14:12:14 GMT -5

Post by Evelyn on Jan 23, 2014 20:37:47 GMT -5

Post by Deleted on Jan 23, 2014 20:58:37 GMT -5

Post by Evelyn on Jan 23, 2014 21:28:44 GMT -5

Post by Deleted on Jan 23, 2014 22:36:51 GMT -5

Post by Jon on Jan 28, 2014 0:59:56 GMT -5