Every year, we’re joined by NBC horse racing analyst Donna Brothers, who returns for Preakness 150 and the last time at the Old Hilltop of Pimlico as we know it and once again without the Kentucky Derby winner. This is a serious conversation about Maryland racing, the state of the industry and the future of Triple Crown series for the sport.
Nestor Aparicio and Donna Brothers discussed the upcoming Preakness Stakes, highlighting the absence of Kentucky Derby winners in recent years and the impact on the race’s significance. Brothers advocated for changing the Triple Crown race schedule to benefit horse welfare, suggesting the Kentucky Derby on the first Saturday of May, the Preakness on the first Saturday of June, and the Belmont on the first Saturday of July. She noted that the current spacing diminishes the quality of undercard races. Brothers also mentioned the return of favorite Epicenter to the Preakness and the importance of maintaining the race’s tradition and significance.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Preakness Stakes, Kentucky Derby, Triple Crown, horse racing, Donna Brothers, NBC Sports, Belmont Stakes, horse welfare, race schedule, Black-Eyed Susan, Maryland racing, horse psychology, Pimlico, horse training, racing traditions.
SPEAKERS
8Nestor Aparicio, Donna Brothers
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T am 1570 towns in Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive, and this is break this week and the final Preakness in the old hilltop and the old grandstand, and folks will be coming in. Hopefully the weather is going to be a little better than it was at Kentucky two weeks ago, where this woman holds court in the best of conditions, the worst of conditions, with jockeys with tears, with horses in the mud. Donna Brothers is coming back to Baltimore, and you know, it’s my 35th Preakness just on the radio alone. That’s not the 10 where I went and drank and hung out in the infield, did all of that stuff, but this will be the last one here. And I guess, for anybody that sheds a tear on old buildings and moving traditions, this is it. But I’m old school. Donna, no Derby winner. No bueno for the Preakness for me. Well,
Donna Brothers 00:56
it’s always disappointing when you don’t get the Derby winner. And now this is going to be out of the last four years. This year included half of them. We haven’t had the Derby winner, if you go back to rich strike in 2022 but at the same time in horse racing, that’s still a big deal for a horse to win a grade one. It’s the highest level of racing, and so it still holds weight on who’s going to be three year old champion, who’s going to be horse of the year. And the other thing that it does is, while for sure, we don’t have the possibility of a triple crown on the line, is it will also make it interesting for the Belmont Stakes. So whoever wins the Preakness Stakes, in theory, is going to tee off against the Kentucky Derby winner in the Belmont Stakes. And so not only is it still a great race, it’s a race of serious consequence with some good horses in it. In fact, the favorite from the Kentucky Derby journalism is back. They just announced a couple of days ago that they were definitely going to go with him. They were sort of now, I don’t want to say they were on the fence, but they just wanted to see how he was behaving after the race. How was his energy, how was his weight, all of those things. And so they green lighted it a couple of days before entries. And so we’re excited to have the favorite journalism back into the Preakness Stakes.
Nestor Aparicio 02:12
I don’t like to delve into the horse racing 100 or the 101 with you, but I really want to keep it basic in this particular one, because, I mean, your broadcast are for sort of everyone. Somebody just tunes in once a year. But what’s happened here with this two week thing and soup to nuts? Concern for the horses, their value, their ability to be effective, but the whole Dan Fogelberg song of you know, once in a chance and once in a lifetime, this is the only chance to win a triple crown for half the trainers, half the owners, the investors, to say, This isn’t good for the horses. This isn’t good for my horse. You have ridden 1000s of horses. You understand the psychology of this and where the money is in the business of this, but this is clearly changed dramatically, even from spend the buck 40 years ago?
8Donna Brothers 03:02
Yeah, I think just because something is a long standing tradition doesn’t mean that it needs to remain. I’ll give you a perfect example of that. Why do we still make the penny when it costs us more than a penny to make the penny, and everybody is annoyed by pennies, the only time you really like a penny is when you find one heads up and it’s a shiny copper penny, right? And so I think we need to get away, away from the penny, stop making that and I think that we need to change the spacing of the Triple Crown races. Ideally for me, I’d like to see it be Kentucky Derby, first Saturday in May, Preakness Stakes, first Saturday in June, and then, of course, the Belmont Stakes, the first Saturday in July. The other thing that that would enhance is the card that you’re going to see on the undercard at Pimlico. So the purses are so high during the Keeneland spring meet, and we go straight from that Keeneland spring meet into Kentucky Derby week. And between those two, I guess, sessions of racing, it really cannibalizes a lot of the good horses racing in America at pretty much every level. So whether it’s two year olds or three year olds or turf horses or older mares or older boys, either way, it takes a lot of those good horses away. And so it diminishes the card that you’re going to be able to have at Pimlico two weeks after the Kentucky Derby, and I think it diminishes the card that you’re going to have at the Belmont Stakes later too. So I think not only would it enhance and and by the way, it doesn’t make it easier. So let’s say that you do come back a month later to run the Preakness Stakes, instead of two weeks later, you’re going to have a whole lot more horses from the Kentucky Derby come back into the Preakness Stakes. So this year we’re going to have a nine horse field. They the maximum capacity at Pimlico for the Preakness Stakes is 14 horses. And I think that if they spaced it out four weeks, you would have a pretty much maximum capacity field every time. So it’s not only going to not make it easier, I think it’s going to make it tougher. And so yeah, sometimes things need to change. It was interesting. The other day, Nestor, I was on a ntra. Hall that’s the national thoroughbred racing Association. And they had Steve Asmussen, Hall of Fame trainer Brendan Walsh. She’s a young, youngish trainer from Ireland, and Dwayne Lucas in that order. And they asked each of them separately, do you think spacing needs to be changed? And essentially, asmussens was like, I think we should honor tradition. Same with Brendan Walsh. You know, it’s not really for me to say, but it is the tradition. Then, 89 year old Wayne Lucas, who’s won every single one of these races, never the Triple Crown, but has won every single one of them. And in fact, he’s won the Preakness stake six times, said absolutely it needs to change. I don’t think that it’s the right spacing for horses anymore. And so if somebody like Wayne Lucas, who you don’t get steeped in tradition anymore than him, can understand why it would be beneficial for not just horse racing, but specifically for the horses, I have a tough time understanding why more people don’t see that. What
Nestor Aparicio 05:55
is the faction that’s fighting against this? The the
Donna Brothers 06:00
traditionalists, the people who don’t want to see any change. So essentially, what they say is, well, it’s just going to make it easier for the next horse to win the Triple Crown. And then is it really the Triple Crown? But let’s go all the way back to Sir Barton, who won the initial triple crown in 1919 now he didn’t get credit for that until hindsight, I think was something like 1930 before a turf rider said, you know, well, another horse has already won these three races, but he won the Kentucky Derby, and four days later, after he trained up to on a train up to Baltimore, he won the Preakness Stakes. And then in between the Preakness Stakes in the Belmont Stakes, he ran in another stakes race in New York, and he won that. And so in the span of 32 days, he won all three legs of the Triple Crown and another race in between. So the one thing that has remained consistent with the Triple Crown is that it’s changed. It’s done that for years and years. And in fact, this year again, just like last year, the test of the champion won’t be the test of the champion, because the Belmont Stakes is going to be run at Saratoga again, and it’s going to be a mile and a quarter. Next year we’re going to have the second leg at the Triple Crown run at Laurel. So the consistent thing about the Triple Crown is that it is consistently changed. And I think that we need to keep the horses in mind and make a positive change. But again, I think it’s just the traditional list.
Nestor Aparicio 07:27
8Donna brothers Sears. She works for NBC. They’re going to be in town doing the Preakness here this week. You know, I hear so much about the television part of this and the money part of this, and that Belmont doesn’t want to move. Would that be the Belmont would be the first thing that has to happen, right? Belmont would have to accept. No,
Donna Brothers 07:44
I disagree. I think, I think if the people in in Baltimore changed their race to a month later, then that’s going to put Belmont in a position to be irrelevant or change their race. So if they change their race to a month later, now that means the Belmont Stakes is going to run a week later, and if the horses that ran in the Kentucky Derby come back into the Preakness Stakes, they are not going to run a week later. And so the Belmont Stakes either becomes irrelevant or they have to change
Nestor Aparicio 08:15
for the Baltimore side of this I’ve spent most of the last 35 years. Can we keep the race? What’s going on with the race? Who’s going to own the race? Is Bruno Mars playing this year. Is the Derby winner. The is the Derby winner coming here. Part of this has to be solved in order for this thing to be worth it, for our state, our city, what we’re doing, tearing down something, building something, trying to build the industry back around it. While the I’m standing in front of the base, the baseball team’s trying to figure out how to build baseball back here as well. You know, I live here 365 and racing kind of comes and it goes, and you come and go, and your team comes in for the Preakness, and you’ve seen all sorts of levels of deterioration of the track, of investment, of the crowds of all of that we’re trying to build this back. And I think from a civic standpoint, if I’m the governor, if I’m the mayor, if I’m in front of this, just a loud mouth on the radio for four decades, I would say, you know, kill the horse racing industry as well. Because I don’t think there’s any way to build this in this spit start. We might have the winner we might not. I don’t think it was built upon that back in the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s, when it when it
Donna Brothers 09:26
became great Nestor. It doesn’t benefit us at NBC Sports either. When we go into a Preakness Stakes with no Kentucky Derby winner coming into the Preakness Stakes, we go into the Preakness Stakes in a budget deficit, because that show, and how much money is put into that show is calculated around us having at least a double crown on the line, right? So at least the Kentucky Derby winner coming back. And so we also go into it with a budget deficit because of the fact that sponsors aren’t as keen to. Answer the second leg of the Triple Crown, if, in fact, it’s not a potential second leg of the Triple Crown for the horse who won the Kentucky Derby. And so I feel you. I feel Baltimore. I One of the things I love about Baltimore, though, is that you are, yes, your show is Baltimore positive, but you are also Baltimore strong. And so you all still come out in support of the race. And you know, it’s still a People’s Party and and I do know that the horsemen still love to go there, because the proximity of the stakes barn and all the horses and the trainers that are there together, and it’s a real show of camaraderie there. So I know that we love to come to Baltimore no matter what, hopefully the fans can understand that it’s still a great race, but I’m with you. It would be better if it was more likely to be the Kentucky Derby winner coming back year after year, instead of occasionally.
8Nestor Aparicio 10:54
Well, I know you live in Kentucky, and I’ve been to 10 derbies, and I never knew what the Oaks was till the first time I went to the Oaks like I didn’t know it was a thing. And then I got there, they were trying to build a Black Eyed Susan here and build around you all will be broadcasting on Friday here as well. There’s just a and slots casinos who owned the track Laurel, just all versus year round racing, all of the things that went into Maryland racing that I that you leave behind when and you come in, and you sort of helicopter in once a year to the Maryland situation. I I’ve always hold for this, and I wish more people bother you and Randy and to Rico and all of you to want to come on and talk more racing, and I’m doing the Lexington crab races here. Can you give me a vision in the Kentucky area of what it means when kids don’t go to school on Friday? It really is a civic Holly. You’re smiling, but that’s what we want it to be here. The way base baseball opening day has a little cachet here in that way that’s kind of even been tarnished over the last 30 years. But this is a freaking holiday. This is the kickoff of summer here. This is our, this is our Super Bowl. It’s the Preakness. I, I’m, you know, I’m, I’m vigilant about it. And if I sound a little antsy about it, it is because we, we really are at that moment of transition. This is the last one, the last time the toilets are going to flush. I want to make sure that five or 10 years from now, we’re in a better spot for for all of it, for television, for for the industry, because it’s such an important race for the industry. Yeah,
Donna Brothers 12:29
let’s back up to the Black Eyed Susan and the Kentucky oaks, like you just talked about, if we do this one month spacing, we can actually make a Philly’s Triple Crown, right? So I think that the Phillies Triple Crown is also going to start to be a bigger thing, because if you’re running the Black Eyed Susan a month after the Kentucky oaks, the top three finishers are going to come back, but you’re not going to get the Phillies from the Kentucky oaks. Probably not the top five finishers from the Kentucky oaks to come back in two weeks, until you can start building that to be a legitimate triple crown for the Phillies. And so, yeah, yeah. You know, in Kentucky, I laughed about the Friday off because kids in Kentucky are shocked when they learn that not every all the you know, schools in America are closed on the day before derby. They just don’t even understand this. But honestly, we feel
Nestor Aparicio 13:13
like a kid from Maryland thinking a woman from Kentucky can just go get crabs down the street and barge down road and it just they’re the only they’re only here.
Donna Brothers 13:23
8Yeah. So honestly, in Kentucky, though, it’s really just a logistics thing. First of all, half the teachers are going to take off because they’re going to the Oaks. Half the principals aren’t going to be there to punish them because they’re going to the Oaks. And then, not only that, just trying to get around the town and city, it’s pretty it’s pretty crazy. It’s a bit of a mad house on both oaks and Derby. And so I think they started giving them the day off of school because attendance from teachers and students was very low, and it just seemed to make more sense. Okay. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 13:55
you know, there, I was hoping for something that was a better tradition than that, but nonetheless, Donna Brothers is here. They’re running a race. And you’ve actually, you know, I this has been my favorite month of, maybe my career, to have people like you say journalism is alive. Journalism is in this. Journalism is on the lead. I still believe in journalism, and maybe even after the derby run in the mud, and I know you were back with Venezuelan. I’m a Venezuelan bloodline, so when there’s a Venezuelan jockey that wins, I sort of celebrate that sort of thing. But journalism is going to just be a super duper favorite on Saturday.
Donna Brothers 14:32
Journalism is alive and well, Nestor, I’m here to report. He is going to be the well, he’s the eight to five morning line favorite, and again, narrowly defeated, finished second in the Kentucky Derby. But here’s a Baltimore horse for your river. Thames is also in there. And the restaurant, I can’t remember the name of it, it used to be open on Tim street down there in Inner Harbor, Baltimore area, and it was a place that I would go eat. And so I know that there’s Tim street right there. Are in Inner Harbor area. We
Nestor Aparicio 15:01
call the themes here, because ain’t nobody here been to the UK. So, yeah, well,
8Donna Brothers 15:05
they have to call it Tim’s. Now
Nestor Aparicio 15:09
we’ll know you’re from out of town if you do that, you know?
Donna Brothers 15:12
Yeah. Well, I’m still going to go Tim’s, because that is the pronunciation of it. And he’s nine to two. He’s a horse that I think has a good chance in there. He rat Ortiz rides. He’s he finished, I think it was third in the Bluegrass stakes behind East Avenue and Burnham square. So, yeah, there’s, I mean, it’s still a really, really good race
Nestor Aparicio 15:36
8when you walk out of Pimlico for the last time. And I remember one of the first times I went there, I saw Howard Cosell in the parking lot. So you never forget as a kid when you see Howard Cosell. Where
Donna Brothers 15:47
I met Howard Cosell was at the Preakness Stakes, the year that cowboy Jack canal wanted. So yeah, we were probably both there. Mine
Nestor Aparicio 15:55
was probably like Ferdinand, maybe 80s, 567, somewhere in there,
Donna Brothers 16:00
well before that, because I was 16 years old and I was, I was the class of 84 so this would have been somewhere around 1982 you
8Nestor Aparicio 16:09
rode at Pimlico? Did you? Yes, no,
Donna Brothers 16:13
did I ever ship in to ride a race? Maybe, but I didn’t ever ride there. I don’t think I, no, I don’t think I ever even shipped in to ride a race at Pimlico, but I went there as a 16 year old with a friend of mine who was going from Kentucky up there, and she needed help driving. And so I was like, Yeah, count me in. I’ll be your wingman.
Nestor Aparicio 16:35
They had me run a bag of film photographers down to the news American, and they said, Just drive in at 330 on Preakness day in 1985 you know, I just got my driver’s license. So you know, for me that the iconic part of Pimlico and being a Baltimorean, and for someone like you that’s always been in the horse racing, and knowing how big this race is, and now being a part of being there to greet the winners the last 20 years on the backside. What is your vision of when you come back that it’s going to look different? I think we’ve all had the stadium that went away and the arena that went away and the thing that went away for horse racing. This is a unique thing to go away and come back and it ain’t going to look the way it looks now, or the way it ever looked. It’s going to look a lot different. Well,
Donna Brothers 17:21
8I’ll tell you something I learned during COVID Nestor, and that is that. So I covered the Kentucky Derby in first Saturday in September in 2020 during the COVID year. And it was a surreal experience, because we had no fans and limited number of connections from each starter in the Kentucky Derby. We did have a full card of racing that day, but what I realized and witnessed before, during and after the race, is that the emotions were still just as strong. So while it’s great to have 150,000 people watch you win a race like the Kentucky Derby, it meant just as much to those people who won it when there were 50 people there to watch them, and the the people, the connections that were beaten that year felt the same went out of their sales to feed that. So what I’m trying to get at is that it’s the passion of the race and it’s the what it means to people in their hearts, and that’s never going to change. It doesn’t matter if they do it in a parking lot, it doesn’t matter if they do it under tents. It doesn’t matter if they do it under in front of a grand palace. That passion is going to be there from all the connections. And so I don’t know what the new layout is going to look like, but I know that all the emotions are going to remain,
Nestor Aparicio 18:39
well, my emotions be the same next year, same time, next year. We’re like that old Allen, all the movie once a year. Donna brothers joins here from NBC. You your crew. You guys do usually,
Donna Brothers 18:49
I never show up pregnant. Nestor, well, I know that.
Nestor Aparicio 18:54
You know, each and every year you come in and the connection stories. I just want to say, y’all do just an amazing job, because I helicopter into your sport. As someone that sits here and talks baseball and football and a whole bunch of other issues, I did sports exclusively first 2025, years of my career, but I respect the journalism, I mean, all the way down to Kornacki inside the clubhouse and trying to learn every part of the industry and then teach people in that 234, hours. Bob Costas was a part of it for years, just, you know, getting everybody sharp for the race here in Baltimore, specifically, where people don’t eat, breathe and sleep, deform like maybe they do in Kentucky, where you are but still want to be informed and want to know what’s going on. You guys just do a great, great job. Keep up the great work. Keep coming in, and we’re going to build the track back. I
8Donna Brothers 19:42
have to brag on my team for one second, because Lindsay shanzer is our producer, and she does an incredible job. She’s been producing the Kentucky Derby and the Breeders Cup for the last few years. And as you know, we started off this year’s Kentucky Derby coverage on NBC with Mike Tirico hosting, and then he had a nut allergy reactor. Question. And so 25 minutes into him hosting Lindsay, had to pull Ahmed Fareed out of the field who had gone from hosting the undercard to not being a field reporter. Ahmed Fareed had to come in and host. And then field reporters like Kenny rice and Brittany erton and Nick luck had to pick up those pieces that Ahmed was going to do, and now he couldn’t do. And it was seamless. And that’s because we do have such a talented team, yes, but they are just so well prepared for them to be able to just step in and do somebody else’s job. And then, of course, Lindsay shanzer, who’s conducting everything, you’ll never see her sweat, she will just seamlessly go, okay, that’s not going to work. We’ll do this. So we do have a fabulous team. Thank you for letting me
Nestor Aparicio 20:43
see it shows it shows it shows every single year, and I’m always impressed by it. I always put it on early because I always want to be boned up that when the race happens, I know what’s happening, and I know all the storylines. And that’s the beauty of being a horse racing fan. In addition to being able to wager on it for time to time, Donna Brothers is here, speaking of wagering our friends over Timonium, Costas is opening in the in the racetrack at Timonium, right next to the OTB. So I just wanted to give them some love. No crabs over there, just the crab cakes. Gotta come to Dundalk and get the real crabs. Donna brothers can do that anytime here, but she’s fit. You can go out to Donna brothers.com and read about her fitness stuff. I one day, there’ll be a hot yoga thing. There’ll be a class where you and I will be under the same roof. I
Donna Brothers 21:25
hope it one day, Nestor, one day, Donna
Nestor Aparicio 21:28
8brothers of NBC Sports, always great to stop by and join us. You’ll be here in Baltimore all weekend long, and we’ll be maybe with journalism on the backside. Greeting winners. I am Nestor. We are W, N, S, T. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore, stay tuned all week long. Lots of Preakness stuff. We had Dick Gerardi on Randy Moss, lots of stuff. Lots of things to talk about, Larry colmus and others for Preakness 150 to make it the best one ever. Stay with us. You.
