In our search to bring real information and horse racing history and insights regarding the current spring mess, as the Preakness and the state of Maryland go to war with the big boys at Churchill, NYRA and Fox reagrding the perilous future of the Triple Crown and its significance to the sport, we turn to lifer track man and journalist Randy Moss to educate us and present the reality of the industry.

The discussion focused on the escalating dispute over the Preakness, the Triple Crown schedule, and whether Maryland can preserve both the race and broader horse racing relevance.

Core Conflict

• Nestor and Randy discussed how Churchill Downs Incorporated, NYRA, and Fox are effectively pressuring the Maryland Jockey Club and the Preakness by supporting a new series structure that disrupts the traditional Kentucky Derby–Preakness–Belmont Stakes sequence.
• Randy said the clearest immediate problem is NYRA refusing to move the Belmont Stakes by one week after NBC retained the Preakness media rights rather than Fox.

Key Context

• Randy explained that Churchill Downs Incorporated had offered $85 million for the Preakness intellectual property, which he interpreted less as a financial play than as a strategic option to move the race later if Maryland racing declines.
• He contrasted racing markets with gaming support, citing New York, Kentucky, and Arkansas as stronger environments than Maryland, and questioned whether rebuilding Pimlico on the same site is a racing-first decision or a broader Park Heights redevelopment effort.

Open Questions

• Randy argued the traditional Triple Crown still matters enough that owners and trainers such as Bob Baffert may continue targeting the Preakness if it remains three weeks after the Derby, even if that weakens the Belmont.
• Major unresolved questions were: Can Maryland make a rebuilt Pimlico viable beyond Preakness Day? Why is NYRA willing to risk the most marketable Triple Crown scenario? Should Maryland consider the nuclear option of moving the Preakness to the Fourth of July as the final Triple Crown leg?

Action Items

Outline

Randy Background

• Randy described growing up in Hot Springs, Arkansas, around Oaklawn Park, with parents and neighbors deeply tied to horse racing.
• He said he started handicapping for a newspaper at age 13, later covered racing in Arkansas and at the Dallas Morning News, then moved to ESPN, NBC, and the NFL Network.

Preakness Threats

• Randy said the current landscape shows Churchill Downs Incorporated and NYRA acting against Maryland’s interests.
• He explained that the fight is not only about dates, but about control of the Preakness, its intellectual property, and the future location and leverage of the race.

Belmont Issue

• Randy said Fox and NYRA had aligned on moving the Belmont Stakes to June 12 if Fox won the Preakness rights.
• After NBC kept the contract, NYRA decided not to move the Belmont, preserving a date that would break the traditional Triple Crown flow if the Preakness moves to three weeks after the Derby.

Maryland Outlook

• Nestor questioned whether horse racing still has enough civic support in Baltimore to justify the scale of the rescue effort.
• Randy said the success of a rebuilt Pimlico remains uncertain and raised a final fallback: move the Preakness to the Fourth of July and make it the deciding Triple Crown race.

Nestor Aparicio 0:01
What the bomb? We are WNST AM 1570 Tass of Baltimore. We call this thing Baltimore positive, and I hope this one’s going to be positive. Not Orioles, and they’re in the wild card race. Not Ravens. They’re going to play some football soon, and not even my like summer of rock and roll with Rush and all that for our 28th anniversary, which we’ll get to a little later on. We’re gonna be doing the Maryland Crab Cake Tour next week at Fishmonger’s Daughter on the 19th, 26th. We’re gonna be out at Koco’s Pub having delicious coconut shrimp. It’s all brought to you by the Maryland Lottery. I will have the Raven scratch-offs, our friends at GBMC, and Farnin and Dermer. I made a really grievous error last week in saying that Dick Girardi is the only human, and I told him this on the air and off the air, and he believes it and knows it. The only human I would trust to bring onto the program to spit some facts and speak some uncomfortable truths in regard to Maryland Jockey Club and Maryland and Westmore and the Pimlico and the Preakness and the Laurel and the Kentucky Derby’s and the Churchills and the Belmonts, and I made an error because I had Dick on and I I I annoyed the hell out of Dick. Dick, I love you, you know this, but I I’m I’m a little cynical at this point. And then over the weekend, like because I’m doing horse racing stuff, oh, I I hit a couple of people down in Kentucky that didn’t even want to come on the show. Regulars of people who love me who said I just don’t want to come on and talk about this because I’m disgusted. Randy Moss is not one of those people, and he’s not in Kentucky. Although I thought he was via Arkansas, and I had no idea how thick the Dick Girardi thing was until Dick and I had some cheesesteaks together up at Costas. He joins us now from Minneapolis, where Luke and I might go next week to watch the Vikings and the Ravens tackle, but and make love to go to Paisley Park and shoot some hoops there just for a minute. Randy covers horse racing and has done this from the beginning of time, even though you may know him from the NFL Network or NBC or and certainly football, which I’ve had I’ve done as many football segments with you, and you’re not even the other Rand. You’re not even the football Randy Moss. There’s a taller guy in the Hall of Fame. How are you? And I really appreciate you taking a little time and just going soup the nuts on this. And I would start with what a incredible background you have in horse racing and having witnessed and followed this. Because I no offense to Wes Moore, I don’t really care what he thinks or because he doesn’t know enough, he hasn’t been doing this long enough. I’m the guy that’s been doing this since Glenn Florio and Vinnie Perone and Charlie Eckman all of these years to watch this thing deteriorate to the point where, yeah, I’m doing a horse racing segment in August, but it’s to try to figure out not who’s lying and who’s telling the truth, but like what’s really going to happen here. That’s what I’m worried about.

Randy Moss 2:40
Well, it’s a good point, and it’s a good question. Honestly, there are reasons to be more pessimistic than optimistic at this point, but I don’t fall into the category of those that say, “Oh, this is the death knell for the Triple Crown. This is the death knell for the Preakness. It’s it’s certainly not a positive development what we’ve seen over the last couple of weeks, but maybe it’s Pollyannish. But I still have plenty of hope that the Triple Crown and the Preakness are just so important to horse racing in general that saner heads will wind up prevailing at some point,

Nestor Aparicio 3:21
Randy, give your background because I’ve been ignorant in all the years I’ve known you, and I can’t say I have a friendship with you. I have a working. I see you, and you’re all. You always come on. You’re always great, and I don’t know you that well, but I know Dick Girardi and and the horse racing side of things. I can’t honestly say I knew you knew horse racing, but I didn’t know you grew up in it. And I want you to take a minute to tell me about growing up in it, the importance of the Triple Crown to you versus me who didn’t grow up in it. My dad didn’t bet the ponies. Famously, my dad never bet, and my dad never went to the track. Although people in the neighborhood, like my dad, never played golf. So there’s just things I I wasn’t introduced to. But horse racing in my town, in my town, I was born in ’68, so secretary had happened when I was four, and then from that moment forward, there was never a time in my life that I wasn’t watching Seattle Slew, affirmed Aladar spectacular. I just, I just name it all. I don’t need a cheat sheet for any of that. I lived it all, and then I worked at the paper in 1984, and it was a real serious concern that I still have Dick Geordi and Ross Petticord and these people that are alive in my life, and Karen DeFrancis, and just people that were around it. We just lost a King Leatherberry recently, and I, I’m an outsider. I helicopter in and come and see you guys when you show up here, and Kenny Maine would show up, and back in the day, Pete Axelm would show up, and and and Whitaker, and like they all had names on their on the outside of the track. But like you’re a horse racing person, this eats at your soul. This triple crown thing, man.

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Randy Moss 4:55
Oh yeah, it does. Like I was born and raised in Hot Springs, Arkansas, where Oakland Park is located. So. I never had a shot. My parents were huge horse racing fans. Like all my neighbors were horse trainers. That’s that’s the environment that I grew up in. And I actually started handicapping for a newspaper under somebody else’s name when I was 13 years old. I wound up going into the newspaper business strictly with horse racing as an entree to cover horse racing, I did that in Arkansas. I did that in Dallas. That now that’s

Nestor Aparicio 5:28
the biggest beat at that newspaper in 1980. And I speak like a a guy that just congratulated my buddy Chris Corman for winning an APSE award for the banner this year for their incredible work, and they do great work. I’m a journalist first now, trained by John Steadman, man. I’m first up on all of that. But at that point, like there was no Orioles or Colts in your town in 1980. There was Razorbacks, probably football, then basketball. Maybe golf was probably a thing there. But like horse racing is a big, big beat in in your town at that time, a generation

Randy Moss 6:01
ago, huge beat. The Arkansas Razorbacks were the king, football and basketball. They were the they were the number one sports story in Arkansas always. Oakland Park was number two, and it was a pretty strong number two. So horse racing was always front and center. When I was when I wound up handicapping in my own name, Nestor. I mean, Oakland was so big. They had my picture on the side of city busses, on bus stops, on newspaper racks because I was handicapping the horses. And you’re like a boy

Nestor Aparicio 6:32
wonder, kind of sort of, right?

Randy Moss 6:33
Pretty good at it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I wound up going to work for the Dallas Morning News to cover horse racing, which had arguably the best sports section in America, and I remember sitting in the office of the sports editor Dave Smith. I sent

Nestor Aparicio 6:48
Dave Smith so many effing resumes. By the time you get done with me, I will show you Dave Smith’s rejection letter of me when he was busy hiring Kirkchen and you know all the legends down there. Yeah,

Randy Moss 6:59
Dave sent me down in his office. So I got a question for you. He said, “Are you a newspaper guy who just happens to know a little bit about horse racing, or are you a horse racing guy who just happens to work for a newspaper to cover horse racing? And so I thought to myself, “How am I going to answer this? And I was honest. I said, “Dave, I’m a horse racing guy, who happens to be able to ride a little bit and handicap, and and that’s why I’m in the newspaper business. And he said, “I appreciate you being honest. And I went from there to ESPN, and from ESPN to NBC, NFL Network in between, because NFL Network was looking for someone who wasn’t a jock. They thought they were a little too Hall of Famer heavy, and they needed someone who had a background in journalism, and that’s why I wound up 13 years with the NFL Network. But yeah, horse racing Nestor has always been my love, front and center in my life, and it’s gotten me where I am right now, wherever that

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Nestor Aparicio 7:58
is. See, for me, it’s been such a helicopter thing, and let me just urinate upon all of it for a minute because I’ve been on the air on december 13. It’ll be 35 years, every minute of every day. The station has been here 2028 years. I my logo’s over here. It’s our 28th anniversary was last week, so I’ve done 35 preaknesses. And you mentioned Clem Florio, and I’m going to try not. I’ve cried on the air twice this week. I don’t want to do it again. I’ve had a lot of things go on, but this week in my personal life. But Clem was like a crazy father figure to me. And when I went on the radio in 1991, Clem Florio, you baby doll. It’s brought to you by Casamia. I want you to come down and see my friends at Enrique Sports Bar Island Town, the 10th race we got a winner here. You know he gave the racing results on my radio show. I would literally hit line two, and Clem was I’d already known Clem a long time then. But Clem would ever, and you can appreciate this because you would come in for the Preakness every year. Clem would leave the racetrack on Friday on Black Eyed Susan Day to come sit on my afternoon drive show to make it from out of out of Pimlico downtown to the Lord Baltimore up into to sit in my to break down the Preakness in in afternoon drive on Friday with me, so man. I learned the man. Clem would get that the binoculars. Randy,

Randy Moss 9:28
oh yeah,

Nestor Aparicio 9:28
sweating, sweating out there. I he reached for his wallet. So like I come at it, but I would only see that on the. I didn’t live at the track, and I reading the form. They were always trying to teach, and I I can read the form, but not like I wasn’t born doing it the way my dad taught me to read box scores when I was three. That’s how I learned how to read was box scores in baseball. So I’m more on that edge of things. But horse racing has always been this thing here that I have to tell people. It’s important. It’s important. It’s important. And then when I started a YouTube channel and I went out to the track in six and seven and eight and I videoed Zito and and D Wayne and whatever and I come back and I’d see Orioles 1000 hits Ravens and this is 20 years ago and there’d be 12 views on a Nick Zito thing talking about the Preakness and I’m like, oh wow! And then all the years of it being sort of empty during the week, sort of like OTB, sort of deteriorating. All the years that we’re going to get slots, we’re going to get no, we’re not, no, we’re not, no, we’re not. Mike Bush fighting everybody. Everybody’s fighting in Annapolis. We’re going to get a casino. No, we’re not. We’re going to save the Preakness. I’ve been saving the Preakness since the Paramutuals went down in the infield that year, and you couldn’t bet on the races. I’ve been saving the Preakness since Frank DeFrancis, let alone Joe and Karen and these magma goons that came in here and just wrecked everything. I got thrown out of the press box on Preakness Day seven years ago after being in it for 32 years, so like I, what what’s happened here is everyone’s been offended, and the governor’s trying to come in and save the day like Superman or whatever. But I asked Dick, and I’m going to ask you what. Explain it to me so I can explain it to my audience because I really was ignorant when I brought Dick on. Feels like this is a ganging up of Churchill and Fox and Belmont on Preakness and maybe NBC, your employer, about the second race and which trainers, money owners, and ultimately the horses run the race are going to make a decision to pick Pimlico and Preakness and NBC over Fox over Belmont and take their winner of the Derby. That’s the the gun game we’re playing at on the beach, right? Like the duel we’re playing, right?

Randy Moss 11:52
Yeah, I think it’s it’s fair to look at the landscape right now, and you can’t really come to any other conclusion but that Churchill Downs and the New York Racing Association at this point are ganging up on the Maryland Jockey Club. They’re ganging up on the Preakness. There’s no other way. If

Nestor Aparicio 12:11
we can’t own it, we’re going to kill it.

Randy Moss 12:14
That that’s one interpretation of it. Now look, let’s start with Churchill Downs Incorporated side of this, okay, because it’s far easier to understand from my standpoint than what the New York Racing Association is doing by refusing to move the Belmont stakes one week, okay, and we can talk about that in just a second, right? CDI offered to put up the $85 million to buy the intellectual property rights of the Breakness. Okay, we know which. It’s

Nestor Aparicio 12:43
weird that that ever happened. That didn’t come with the track. That it got sort of separated in a general sense, right? Part of

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Randy Moss 12:49
the negotiation when First Racing bowed out of Maryland Racing, turned it over to the state of Maryland, offered to give them Pimlico to sell them Laurel. That was all part of it. And this was

Nestor Aparicio 13:00
part of the state fighting to make sure the thing never wound up in Gulfstream, which was you and I’ve talked about that for 20 years. I’ve talked about that with Don. Everybody comes on Preakness week. I’ve talked for 20 years. Like at some point, it’d be worth a whole lot more money than them to just steal it from the state the way the Colts were stolen here, right? Literally.

Randy Moss 13:17
Well, see, the question in the whole deal is, what was the motive of Churchill Downs to put up $85 million to acquire the intellectual property rights from first? Okay, it wasn’t financial. They would make probably 5 million a year in lease payments back to Maryland. That’s part of the deal. You would lease the IP rights back to the state of Maryland every year. 5 million on an $85 million investment, you could do better in the stock market. That’s that’s not what CDI was after. Okay, I’m pretty confident I can connect the dots, and and I think this is what CDI was looking at. Suppose that suppose that Maryland’s grand plan right now of rebuilding Pimlico on the same site, okay, that the previous Pimlico was not flourishing. Suppose it doesn’t work, and right now there are some pretty significant headwinds toward horse racing in general. If you’re a racing circuit that does not benefit from gaming, New York has gaming, Kentucky has gaming, Arkansas, where I’m from, has gaming. All those places racing is flourishing. Santa Anita, Gulfstream. Well, Randy, my

Nestor Aparicio 14:33
whole career-it’s always going back to the first of Francis was we need this to compete, right? That that that was losing spend a buck in 1985 was we need this to compete right literally

Randy Moss 14:46
and from the perspective of Churchill Lands Incorporated what if the Pimlico the experiment doesn’t work okay maybe it’s good for the neighborhood of Park Heights who knows maybe it’s. But for horse racing, suppose it doesn’t work, and suppose Maryland horse racing, with all the competition for racing dates and horses in the Northeast, and no gaming, and having been competing against other places with gaming, suppose Maryland racing doesn’t pan out long term. Churchill Downs then, as the owners of the IP rights, would be able to move the Preakness someplace else, such as Colonial Downs in Virginia, which Churchill Downs owns. Okay, now Churchill, we we don’t necessarily need to go down this rabbit hole, but Churchill is a publicly traded corporation beholden to its stock price, beholden to its shareholders by the very nature of being a publicly traded corporation, and they did essentially the same thing a decade ago when they owned Arlington Park in Chicago, chose to tear down Arlington Park for reasons that benefited their share price and their stockholders, not the Illinois racing scene, but Churchill Downs Incorporated, and they moved the Arlington Million, the signature race, to Virginia. Okay, I think that was the long-term play. Optimistically, you could say that Churchill Downs, in my opinion, looked at it as an insurance policy. If if Maryland racing winds up deteriorating to the point that it’s not going to pan out, okay, we can move the Preakness. I think fairly Westmore and people in the Maryland government were afraid that Churchill Downs would be more aggressive than that and would choose to try to move the Preakness before that, and they tried that if they got

Nestor Aparicio 16:43
a hold of it, they’d end it right now, and we’d be chasing them the the way the the Baltimore’s chasing the Colts when they were gone. They were just gone.

Randy Moss 16:53
Yeah, yeah, right. And that’s that’s obviously a very sore point in in Maryland sports history. And well, that’s what I’ve

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Nestor Aparicio 16:58
compared it to. And Dick’s like, no, no, no, no, no. If Baffert wins the Derby, he’s gonna bring, and it’s gonna screw them up. And they’re trying to do the six horse thing. And I’m a horse guy, and I don’t care about these six races. I care about the Triple Crown. Randy Moss is my guest, by the way. Randy, why is the Triple Crown important? And how did it become this thing that was this thing that was two, two, and three, and everybody got along, even though there wasn’t a commissioner. Everybody didn’t get along, dude. I was here in 1985 when the horse didn’t come, and all hell broke loose. And then they were like, “Well, we got to give a million dollar bonus if you like. And that was I’ve been hanging on that for 40 years when the slots didn’t come, the casinos, the gaming, all of those things that were going to enhance this. I would be the first to step up, and Sadie Randy, and I mean this, and I would tell if I see Wes Moore at Mako, if he doesn’t run for me like he’s been doing for three and a half years, after I voted for him and pimp for him, if he sits and talks to me, I would say find the real people that think it’s important that we make horse racing a thing here in the state because the equine people, the veterinarians, the people that work at the track-I’ve heard all of that, but I haven’t heard anybody that’s like, “Oh, I can’t wait to get gussied up and get out to the new Pimlico when they get the new Pimlico built. We’re gonna go. We’re gonna go often, and we’ve never been before, but we’re gonna start going, and we’re gonna we’re like-I think they’ve really cooked this thing. I say this about the Orioles here a lot because of how the deterioration of that brand has been on my watch, and it makes me a prick for sitting here talking about an empty stadium and last place. I don’t know what to say about horse racing that’s ever, ever in my 35 years, other than me and you and Clem and Dick and people, the people love it, loving it. That there’s been any inertia here, true civic inertia, to the degree that I’ve seen in the 10 Kentucky Derbys I’ve been to, to let the kids out of school, turn it into a festival, bring bands in, shut the city down, make it a thing, make it a source of civic pride. It is none of that here, and I wish it were. And every year I lament it, and I would I would say at some point here we are, and here we are is they’re going to war now, right? I mean, Dick’s like, let’s go fight, you know. When I had him on, let’s go. If you’re Maryland, you got to fight, right? But I don’t know how this is going to turn out, and I know there’s no appeal to the locals here to come save horse racing the way there would be if we had to save the Orioles, right? Like, there’s enough heart in that that people could run and get into that. I don’t know that there’s enough people that have horse racing in their heart the way you do, the way Marty McGee did, the way Dick does, the way every name that I would give here, mr. Costas, who owned horses and loved the way John Angelus and the Angelos family loved horses, right? Kevin Plank, right? But none of these people are relevant to saving it right now. All I see is a governor waving around a proclamation that I, quite frankly, it’s not that I don’t support it. I just don’t see any evidence for all the reasons you’ve given me, including my own fricking eye. And living here, and broadcasting from the OTB six times a year over Costas, that says to me, there’s not. They would have a lot of work to do. They’re going to need somebody very dynamic to help them sell the sport here because it’s not. People don’t know how to read the form here, Randy. It’s not Lexington, you know.

Randy Moss 20:17
I would love nothing more, and I know you feel the same way for the new Pimlico to be a smashing success and to bring a lot more people to the races at Pimlico, not just on Preakness Day. That’s important on a regular basis, which obviously wasn’t happening at the old Pimlico. I mean, we would love to see that happen and rejuvenate the state of Maryland and the the racing industry. Is there

Nestor Aparicio 20:41
anybody in the horse racing industry that wants to make that happen outside of these four walls? Probably not, right? I mean, it feels like they’re they could just put us out of business and make more money elsewhere. It’s kind that’s the flipping part of me, you know.

Randy Moss 20:52
Maryland guy, I would absolutely love to see that happen, just as a horse racing guy. But here’s the here is literally the nine figure question. You and I have talked about this in the past. Would it have made more sense, from a horse racing perspective, to tear down Laurel and rebuild Laurel at that same site and have that be the number one, the only track in the state of Maryland?

Nestor Aparicio 21:19
Well, the city of Baltimore is going to have to fight that. They’re going to have to fight. If I’m the mayor of Baltimore, I’d have to fight that. And I was told that when I was going to run for mayor six years ago.

Randy Moss 21:28
And Baltimore did fight that, but one of the primary reasons, and you’ve heard this from Wes Moore, one of the primary reasons that Pimlico is being rebuilt on the exact same spot that the previous Pimlico was struggling mightily is basically a social engineering project for the community of Park Heights, hoping that it’ll rejuvenate that whole area. It’ll bring in investment. It’ll really be a shot in the arm for Park Heights. It’s not 100% because they think, oh, this is where racing will flourish in Maryland. This is where this is what we need to do. It’s not that I

Nestor Aparicio 22:03
don’t believe in the site. I’m not sure I believe in horse racing here.

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Randy Moss 22:08
That’s that’s you know, and

Nestor Aparicio 22:10
that’s 35 years of me, and I’ll help them sell it. I love it. I’ve been to it. I I I I can’t say I was ever treated great in all the years. I mean, literally, there’s nobody there to treat you great. I can certainly say the last 15 years, these imposters rolling up here from Gulfstream that were doing everything they could do to kill it and destroy it, have now put it to a point where I’m I’m exasperated, Randy, and I cannot hide it from you. But but you know what? You know who’s not exasperated? I’m not gonna I’m not gonna boojah you. Nobody over at the fan cares. I hired and fired all those people. They don’t know a horse from a course, like literally. There’s nobody at the newspaper to save it. There’s no publisher Reg Murphy at the newspaper loved horse racing and thought it was important. It’s got to be a double truck, and we’ve got to get. There’s no mayor that that says, well, maybe Brandon Scott, but like he’s got bigger issues. The Preakness better not be the biggest issue that the mayor or the governor has around here. We got a bridge that’s down for crying out loud. Like we got things going on here, taxes, taxes, all of that, right? Competition. I don’t. I can’t believe that that if I were mayor, I’d have to put political capital behind it in the way to say we’re going to build this because horse racing is so great and they have their act together because it doesn’t feel that way to me as the taxpayer, not not not as the astute journalist guy who’s been doing this, just as the taxpayer. If you have to sell this to me, I’m like, I haven’t been a horse race in my life. They run a race, Preakness never. I don’t even go because it’s not something that’s just in the DNA here that even people even know it’s going on anymore. That’s how bad it’s gotten, you know.

Randy Moss 23:52
Well, Nestor is a lifelong Baltimorean. You have your finger on the pulse of sports in Baltimore a whole hell of a lot more than I do. So you undoubtedly make some very good points. I will share the opinion of Dick Girardi that guys like Bob Baffert, right, when the Preakness is three weeks after the Kentucky Derby, I think they will continue to support the Preakness stakes, even if it means perhaps not running in the Belmont stakes, at least short term. Well, that kills the Triple

Nestor Aparicio 24:25
Crown, then, right? Just off on. Well, the trip means the Triple Crown gets killed when you and I get together the second week in May, and none of the horses are coming. That’s killed then, right? I

Randy Moss 24:34
mean, I’d be shocked if the Triple Crown for 2027 is is is anything, right? Because Nyra has steadfastly insisted that they will not move the date, and that’s part two of all this Nestor. Why

Nestor Aparicio 24:49
is okay? Go ahead, give me the why. By the way, Randy Moss is here educating me and dealing with my angst. Thank you. This is

Randy Moss 24:55
this is really what I don’t understand. Surely. The pettiness can’t possibly rise to this level, but maybe it can. The contract for the TV contract for the the TV rights for the Preakness were up at the end of this Preakness in 2026. NBC had it for a long time; they were up for bid for the last six months. It’s really come down to NBC versus Fox, okay? And Fox and Nyra both agreed that if Fox were to get the TV rights going forward, the Belmont Stakes would be moved back one week. Right? There are written documents that have to go back and forth in negotiations like this. If if we get the rights, we will do A, B, C, and D, and that was part of the deal. If Fox got the TV contract, the 2027 Belmont Stakes would be run on Saturday, June 12th, not Saturday, June 5th. Saturday, June 12th. Okay, so what happens? NBC gets gets the bid. NBC wins the rights to the new TV contract. And so, what does Naira do immediately? They announce that they’re not going to move the Belmont Stakes. After all, they’re going to keep it on June the fifth, knowing knowing that the Preakness was going to make an announcement that they were running the Preakness three weeks after the Kentucky Derby. That was all part of the plan with Fox. Three weeks to the Preakness, three weeks to the Belmont. The Belmont run on June the 12th. Now Fox doesn’t get it. Nyra and Fox are in business together, so it’s like one in one A. Fox, Nyra, Nyra, Fox. It’s kind of what I call them. So why, why would Nyra blow up the Triple Crown? How does that

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Nestor Aparicio 26:45
help the Belmont? All that money they’ve dumped up there. Don’t they want a horse to win both of these? Isn’t that the basis of the Belmonts? I ran Belmont busses, and I can tell you when I run Belmont busses because Funny Side, Smarty Jones, you know, like I know what they saw. The hats we were going with Baltimore, Maryland racing fans up to Belmont only because there was a chance for a triple crown, and that seems to me to be like, and it’s the same thing with the Preakness. If the Derby winner’s not coming, you’re screwed. Back to spend the buck, and three out of the last five years, or whatever it’s been here, I just I keep asking the question like, you covered football, Randy. If I’m pissed at something, I knew I’m pissed at Roger Goodell and or the head of NBC. There’s a person, Don Almayer, whoever. Well, wasn’t Olmayer, but like whoever the heads of these corporations were. Les Moon visits, CBS in the day. I don’t even know who the humans are at Churchill, Fox, Nyra to say. I knew it was Belinda here forever and her father Frank Stronach, but there are humans making these decisions. What are the humans thinking at Naira and at Fox that benefits them to destroy the Preakness and or the Triple Crown? How does that help anybody?

Randy Moss 28:03
I can’t answer the Nyra part of it. It makes no sense to me whatsoever. I mean, I was at the Preakness and the Belmont in 2015 when American Pharoah swept the Triple Crown. I’ve been in horse racing almost all my life. There has not been a single day of horse racing I have ever attended that was more electric than the Belmont Stakes in 2015. Any time, not just American Pharoah. Any time a horse gets to the Belmont Stakes with a chance to sweep the Triple Crown, that Belmont Stakes is, in my opinion, the most electric day of horse racing all year long in New York. And so, whether what have they done now? They they have they have essentially traded that possibility, right, of the traditional deciding dramatic final leg of the Triple Crown to become the second leg in a six-race series that may or may not be successful, and certainly will never capture the imagination of the public the way the Triple Crown has for decades and decades. You have a

Nestor Aparicio 29:05
thing. Sell the thing you have. It’s already struggling, right?

Randy Moss 29:09
I I do not get it. I do not understand what their ultimate play is. To me, it would make all the sense in the world. Okay, you want to have this series with Churchill Downs. You want to exclude the Preakness because Churchill Downs is upset at the Preakness at Maryland, whatever, or Fox is upset because they didn’t get the TV rights, whatever. But move the move the Belmont one week, okay? Keep the Triple Crown intact, and then have your series. That’s fine. Don’t include the Preakness in your series, whatever. But you got the Triple Crown, which you know works when it’s done properly, and then you can do your series at the same time, an adjunct. I, I just to me, Nestor, it doesn’t make sense. It’s humans, and humans can be petty. But I don’t know who to

Nestor Aparicio 29:52
blame. That’s what. That’s my point. Who I don’t. I don’t know who, who’s responsible for such an egregious. So bad that people in Kentucky didn’t even want to come on and talk about it because they’re kind of sick about it. Randy Mosser, last thing for you, and this is because of Dick being the most astute guy in the room. Maybe not with you, but certainly with me, he’s the most astute guy, which is it. The thing he said about saving the Preakness was all right. So they’ve added the week, they’ve added the day, so to be 22 days. You win the Preakness, that you win the Derby. You’re going to point your horse here because there’s money. And I said, well, this is going to become a bidding thing between the Belmont and and the Preakness. Whoever’s got the bigger hearse. And Dick’s like for the Preakness people, this is about the handle. And even though the Derby winner doesn’t show up at the Preakness. The handle’s pretty strong, and at the end of the day, the money’s the money’s the money’s the money, and the Preakness is the Preakness. And these jackass Jim Dandy, whatever these things are, they’re never going to be that. And if the Preakness prints money and gets the Kentucky Derby winner most of the time, some of the time on this third week, that eventually the Fox Buddies will, you know, like when they paid the $787 million for lying, they’ll have to relent and not be the people they are and figure out that there might be more money back in the Triple Crown. But I don’t know that the sport’s going to survive all of like a fight of this magnitude over the course of time. I wonder for golf with the live thing, college football with the lid off and the mess of it. I felt like this is horse racing’s chance to get its act together, and it’s made it, it’s made a bad situation worse all everywhere but at Churchill, where they’re they’re fine there. But the Preakness apparently because of the handle and the name of it and the ability to still get the Kentucky Derby winner, Dick talked me off the ledge a little bit. He calmed me down at the

Randy Moss 31:42
end. Horse racing not only shot itself in the foot, it shot itself in both feet, and and Dick is correct about the handle, about that being the driving thing with the Preakness, and and it you know that’s you know that’s a that’s a that’s a huge deal. But let me leave you with with one other possibility. This is what I refer to as the nuclear option, Nestor. Suppose New York remains completely intransigent about the Belmont Stakes, refuses to move the Belmont stakes, which is ridiculous. They blame that it’ll it’ll it’ll blow up their stake schedule. Come on, there are easily ways to revamp your stake schedule. That’s ridiculous. This is in the back pocket of the Maryland Jockey Club. Dupreekness could be moved to the Fourth of July and become the third and final deciding leg of the Triple Crown. They want to keep the Belmont on June the fifth, early June. Fine, have at it. I sort of love

Nestor Aparicio 32:43
America and the flag, and like you could, you could, you could lubricate me on that. And then the Belmont

8

Randy Moss 32:49
Stakes would undoubtedly change the distance of the Belmont, because that would also create tradition,

Nestor Aparicio 32:54
and there could be a parade out in front of Pimlico. Like I

Randy Moss 32:58
now, this would be blowing up tradition running the Preakness stakes on the Fourth of July, but right now, I mean, Naira seems to be not concerned at all about blowing up the tradition of the Triple Crown. So, you know, this is a possibility that has been discussed in many places. Initially, I completely wrote it off as being just a slap in the face to tradition, and then look at what Nira Fox does. So keep that in mind going forward as the nuclear option that the Maryland Jockey Club has in their arsenal.

Nestor Aparicio 33:30
Well, if I talk to Wes Moore, I pat him on the back and say, “You have to fight. We, you know, we have to fight in regard to how to do this. But I really, and they would have some wonky numbers about this and that, and look, you’re horse racing guy, and I’ll hear it about farmlands and agriculture and like all of that. But the actual interest in it-that’s going to need to be manufactured. That doesn’t exist any more than there’s interest outside of all white people for baseball here. It does need to be. It does need to be at some point. They ain’t the Ravens. That’s all I’m going to say. By the way, you still doing football? Are you

Randy Moss 34:06
not not doing any football? I mean, I keep up with it. You know, I hear about all the enthusiasm at the Ravens training camp, and everybody’s singing “Kumbaya” and Lamar’s happy, and you know all that. John Harbaugh’s going to

Nestor Aparicio 34:18
save the Giants. I know.

Randy Moss 34:19
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I hear all that. Right after

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Nestor Aparicio 34:21
Jackson Dark saves the Giants, I’ve seen the billboards up there. Randy, I appreciate you, man.

Randy Moss 34:26
Fascinated to see what happens with the Ravens. Yeah,

Nestor Aparicio 34:28
man, let’s stay in touch on this horse racing thing. I don’t have a lot. I mean, again, I don’t have a lot of you that are so expert on it that I can say spend the buck and you even know what I’m talking about because it’s been 41 years, bro.

Randy Moss 34:39
Hey, NBC likes to make a big deal that I have done 46 Kentucky Derbys. I think I’m at 44 Preaknesses. So I’ve I’m a big fan of Baltimore. I’m a big fan of the Preakness. I’m even a bigger fan of horse racing and the Triple Crown. And let’s get this thing straightened out. Man, I went out there

Nestor Aparicio 34:57
in 1984 to run film to the News America. To pick up bags of film and get it on Preakness Day, like get my car in and all that on Winter Avenue, back where the stalls and that little cage area we park. And you know, I ran into Howard KoCell, but my my real memory of my early days was in 1986 when Ferdinand won, and he had the old trainer, old fella that was there, and I met Ferdinand, and I got up on a horse for the first time, really in my life of that caliber, and it was just beautiful horse. And I’m like, all right, I’m in. Charlie, Chris Thomas, Vinny, somebody teach me the horses. So Clem, somebody help me. So 40 years later, I appreciate you’re here, and we’re still trying to save this thing here. And I’ll try to be optimistic based on your information and Dick. That you saying we got a chance here. You saying we got a chance, Randy? We got a chance. All right.

Randy Moss 35:49
You got time to close with a quick Howard Cosell story?

Nestor Aparicio 35:51
Any Howard Cosell story? Great

8

Randy Moss 35:54
essential Howard Cosell.

Nestor Aparicio 35:55
Go ahead.

Randy Moss 35:55
I’m on the backside of Churchill Downs in the early 1980s. ABC is doing the Kentucky Derby, and there’s a big crowd gathered around a barn, and I walk over to see what the crowd is all about, and it’s Howard Cosell.

Nestor Aparicio 36:06
He’s six foot seven. He’s a huge man.

Randy Moss 36:08
He’s doing an interview, and of course it’s Monday Night Football, Howard Cosell, and everybody’s crowded around, and there’s this guy standing next to me, about my age, a young guy, and so the the interview’s over, and Kocele turns around toward me and says, “Young man, young man, I need to speak with you right now, and I’m I’m scared. I I thought he was talking to me, but he was talking to this guy next to me. And and I hear the guy next to me says, oh oh no. So I walk on and do my thing around the barn area, and I run into this young guy. And I and so I say, hey, what what was going on there with Howard Cosell, he looked pretty angry, and the guy said, “Oh my God! He said, “You won’t believe it. He said, “One year ago, I was at the backside, standing right there on a cold morning, watching Howard Cosell, and Cosell handed me his ABC windbreaker and said, ‘Young man, will you hold this for me? And he said, ‘Here I am. I’m standing there. I’ve got freaking Howard Cosell’s ABC jacket, he said. So I took off with it, and he remembered my face one year later. He

Nestor Aparicio 37:08
stole Howard Cosell’s jacket.

Randy Moss 37:10
Stole Howard Cosell’s jacket, and one year later, Cosell looked at him in the crowd, picked him out, and read him the Riot Act,

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Nestor Aparicio 37:17
and knew it came back looking for

Randy Moss 37:19
him. He came back looking because

Nestor Aparicio 37:20
Howard couldn’t get another one. Kevin Byrne. Kevin Byrne told me the best Howard Koco’s cell story when he got the job. He said he met Howard like on a you know doing a Monday night football. Kevin Byrne, what can you teach me that I don’t already know? That was the first thing he said. What can you tell me that I don’t already know? Randy Moss is here. He always tells me things I don’t already know, which is why we bring him on. Thank you. Hit the golf ball straight, and we’ll see you in Minnesota. Hey, when I get to Paisley Park, we’ll shoot some hoops. All right, there he goes. Randy Moss, NBC Sports Horse Racing Insider, trying to walk me off the ledge or through the track, or I can’t jump from the top of the the press box at Pimlico because it ain’t there anymore. But I did love walking that that tunnel. Back for more. We’re Baltimore positive. Stay with us.