The final Triple Crown and legend of Donna Brothers

She joins us every year in discussing the Kentucky Derby winner and the current and future state of the Preakness and the horse racing industry but longtime NBC reporter and jockey Donna Brothers tells Nestor why she’s made him cry on the first Saturday of May for the final time from Churchill Downs and the bed of roses.

Donna Brothers discussed the 2023 Kentucky Derby, highlighting the emotional impact of Jose Ortiz’s win and the significance of Cherie DeVoe’s historic achievement as a female trainer. She noted the challenges of hosting the Preakness at Laurel instead of Pimlico and proposed moving the race to a four-week spacing to increase participation. Brothers also announced her retirement after the 2023 Derby, endorsing Andy Van Koen as her successor. She emphasized the need for Pimlico’s renovation to restore the Preakness’s civic importance and expressed optimism about the future of horse racing despite the current challenges.

• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Attend and staff the Lexington Market event on Wednesday as planned (represent WNST AM 1570 Baltimore; promote Preakness week activities).
• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Attend Fadeley’s to participate in the crab Derby and eat crab cakes during Preakness week (on Wednesday as part of Lexington Market activities).
• [ ] Provide on-air coverage for NBC on Saturday from Laurel for Preakness week (appear on NBC’s broadcast as scheduled).

Kentucky Derby Reflections and Emotional Impact

• Nestor Aparicio welcomes Donna Brothers to discuss Preakness at Laurel and the future of the Triple Crown.
• Nestor shares his emotional experience watching the Kentucky Derby, mentioning how it made him cry.
• Donna Brothers discusses the unique aspect of the Kentucky Derby, where every year, new 17 to 23-year-old horses and jockeys compete, creating new stories.
• Donna highlights the story of Sheridan making her Kentucky Derby debut and Jose Ortiz’s first chance to win with a strong horse.

Jockey’s Emotional Journey and Interview Techniques

• Nestor reflects on the emotional journey of jockeys and the significance of winning the Kentucky Derby for them.
• Donna shares her approach to interviewing jockeys, emphasizing the importance of capturing their emotions immediately after the win.
• Donna mentions her initial frustration when the trainer was interviewed first but later appreciated the story of Cherie DeVoe.
• Donna highlights Jose Ortiz’s selflessness and his appreciation for the Phipps family silks, which have a long history in racing.

Cherie DeVoe’s Story and Personal Connections

• Nestor and Donna discuss Cherie DeVoe’s background and her relationship with Donna through horse racing.
• Donna shares how Cherie helped an autistic young man who loves horses get a job at the track.
• Donna recounts her conversation with Cherie about the importance of making history as a woman in horse racing.
• Donna explains her decision to root for Cherie DeVoe to make history at the Kentucky Derby.

Challenges of Covering Horse Racing and Personal Decisions

• Donna reflects on the challenges of covering horse racing, including the long hours spent in front of a computer.
• Donna shares her decision to retire after the 2023 Kentucky Derby, feeling it was time to focus on other aspects of her life.
• Donna introduces Andy Van Koen as her successor, praising her enthusiasm and passion for horse racing.
• Nestor expresses his hope that Donna will continue to attend major racing events in a more relaxed capacity.

Future of the Preakness and Triple Crown

• Nestor and Donna discuss the future of the Preakness Stakes and the challenges of hosting it at Laurel instead of Pimlico.
• Donna shares her experience of galloping horses at Laurel and her familiarity with the track.
• Donna and Nestor discuss the potential changes to the Triple Crown schedule, including moving the Preakness to a four-week spacing.
• Donna emphasizes the importance of having the Kentucky Derby winner participate in the Preakness to maintain the integrity of the Triple Crown.

Impact of NBC and Fox on Horse Racing Coverage

• Donna explains the political aspects of the Preakness Stakes’ future, including NBC’s contract with the Maryland Racing Association and Churchill Downs’ purchase of the rights.
• Donna discusses the potential impact of moving the Preakness to a four-week spacing on the strength of the field and the undercard program.
• Nestor and Donna agree that a four-week spacing would make the Preakness more attractive to horsemen and improve the overall event.
• Donna expresses her hope that the new Pimlico will become a fantastic venue for the Preakness Stakes in the future.

Final Thoughts and Future Plans

• Nestor and Donna discuss the importance of the Preakness Stakes to Baltimore and the need to bring the race back to Pimlico.
• Donna shares her plans to continue attending major racing events but in a more relaxed capacity.
• Nestor expresses his gratitude for Donna’s contributions to horse racing coverage and his hope to see her at future events.
• Donna and Nestor conclude the conversation with a focus on the future of horse racing and the potential improvements to the Preakness Stakes.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Preakness Stakes, Kentucky Derby, Laurel Racecourse, Triple Crown, Cherie DeVoe, Jose Ortiz, NBC coverage, horse racing, Donna Brothers, Pimlico, Belmont Stakes, horse training, jockey emotions, race history, Maryland Racing Association.

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SPEAKERS

Donna Brothers, Nestor Aparicio

Nestor Aparicio  00:01

Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T, am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We are Baltimore, positive. It is Preakness week. The Yankees are in town. We will be at the Lexington market on Wednesday. We’ll be at fadeley’s eating crab cakes, doing the crab Derby, because it is preak this week in Laurel, if not at Pimlico this week. Hopefully that changes into the future. We’ve talked a lot of horse racing here this week, and we welcome back our defending champion. And before I begin last Derby and all the things for Donna brothers, you made me cry again. You and Ortiz, I wasn’t going to cry. I was doing okay. I just gotten off the yoga mat. I came home, I’m eating my food, and then orti starts crying, and Cherie DeVoe almost got me with you on the track before the thing, and you sort of hold her off of that. What a derby, what an amazing derby. And I will get to Laurel and Pimlico and all that stuff. It is always good to have you back. And it must be the first weekend of May, about seven o’clock if I’m crying and blubbering watching you on television. Yeah.

Donna Brothers  01:07

Well, Nestor, thank you. It gives me great pride and joy to make you cry on the first Saturday in May. You know that’s the thing about the Kentucky Derby, I would say, like in if you look at the NBA Playoffs or the finals, and you look at the same thing, the Super Bowl, you typically have the same players that you’ve been watching all year, right? And so you don’t have new stories. You might have a new winner, you might have a Cinderella story, but you don’t have new players. And the thing about the Kentucky Derby is that every year we’re going to line up somewhere between this year it was 18 because of some late scratches, but 17 to 23 year olds that we’ve never seen race before and attached to every one of those three year olds is going to be a new story. Sheridan made her Kentucky Derby debut. It was not Jose Ortiz’s first derby. He had been came into the Kentucky Derby. Oh, for nine but it was the first time that they came in with a chance together. And, yeah, it’s the thing about the Kentucky Derby that you love is that there’s always going to be new stories unfolding that you’ve never seen before.

Nestor Aparicio  02:23

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Well, you were a jockey. You won lots and lots of races. It was your life, that moment where you talk to a jockey, even if English isn’t their first language. And that’s not the first time that’s happened. I think that you being a part of that fraternity in a different kind of way. And look, the horse may have known it’s won the Kentucky Derby and about to get some roses, but it’s the trainer. And look, the owners and the sheiks and the billionaires and the really rich people that when a regular person wins the Derby, and that’s happened from time to time as well. That’s one thing, but for the jockeys, it’s everything. And I think I don’t even realize that until you get there, and he seems so clear eyed, and he seemed fine, and then he looked for his brother, and it was over with for me. I just think there’s an emotional part of that for horse racing, that you’re you sit in that saddle every year at that moment with that jockey. And I just think that’s a really special, special thing you’ve managed to do the last three decades.

Donna Brothers  03:25

Well, I appreciate that, Nestor, you know, I thought about it. Obviously, this is 26 years I’ve been doing this. In a few years into a couple of years into doing it. I thought, you know, like, what’s the point of getting there so soon? And if, if if we’re going to get there that soon, how can it be different than if they catch them 10 minutes or five minutes after the win? And I thought, really, the only point is to catch them while they’re still in their heart, before they’ve had a chance to get in their head. And so my first question is, never tell me about your trip, because I really want to get to the heart of the matter right away. And in the case with Jose, to be honest, I was just a little tiny bit peeved that they were that they went to the trainer first, because I really wanted to talk to Jose, and I could tell it meant a lot to him. But then it ended up being a blessing, because Nick luck had a great interview with Cherie DeVoe. The viewers got to see what a wonderful story she was. And while we did have to wait, Jose Ortiz is so selfless that he would have spent five minutes talking about how wonderful it was for Cherie Devo to win this and so by the time they came to us, I was able to say to Jose, we just heard from Cherie, and we knows what it means to her to have won her first Kentucky Derby, but Jose, you just won the Kentucky Derby, right? What does it mean to you? And so we were able to go right into that. And that was nice, because, again, he would have spent time talking about others, because he’s very selfless. And even even in the interview, he said, you know, a lot. Lot of the jockeys will say, I’m so thankful for the owners, or thank you for this opportunity. But he said, these silks, it’s important to me to have one in these Phipps family silks, because the Phipps family had been doing that for 100 years. And one of the, I think lesser revealed stories of it was that Daisy Phipps paluto, who is co owner of golden tempo, her family has been owning race horses and those FIPS family silks for a long time. Well, we found out just how long in the aftermath. It was actually the 100 year anniversary of their family starting the racing stable. And guess who started the racing stable? Not her great grandfather, not her grandfather, but her great grandmother and so this really was a Kentucky Derby for the women.

Nestor Aparicio  05:45

Your mother rode horses. Right? Am I right saying that? Yes,

Donna Brothers  05:49

my mother was a jockey, and very successful jockey. In fact, the leading female jockey in the nation for pretty much all the years.

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Nestor Aparicio  05:57

Well, I would be the last one to be disrespectful to women, but sort of a boys sport in a lot of ways, right? The boys run the rate. It’s not Phillies, it’s usually the male horses, usually male owners. It’s a Baffert, a Lucas, you know, through all of these years, and I guess we get to the hard part of the story, which is the horse isn’t coming to Maryland, and we’ll get to the Triple Crown, and we’ll get to all of this, and not even coming to Pimlico, it’s Laurel. But I do want to talk about Cherie DeVoe a little bit in your relationship with her, even though she’s not really a part of the Baltimore story this week, even though that horse and Sherry

Donna Brothers  06:36

does have a horse running in the SIR Barton. I saw her yesterday, and I asked her if she would run anything and at Laurel, and she said she has a horse in the SIR Barton, so we’ll see her.

Nestor Aparicio  06:47

Well, tell me about her and the relationship you have with her, because she got to talk about you on the track and you judged her down. I want you to talk about her a little bit, and the relationship that people like you have with horse people. I mean, Donna, I helicopter into this. It’s no secret, right? I mean, I run around the ravens and the Orioles and I do all of that. And this is the year. This is the week of the year, or my wife goes out and pets the Clydesdales, usually at winter Avenue at pumlico. I haven’t even it hasn’t registered to me that I’m not going to the alibi breakfast on Thursday there that I’m on Saturday, I’m going to put a hat on and do all that and go somewhere else for this race. But I do want to focus on the derby a little bit and talk about Cherie, and talk about what you saw down there and your final Derby as well. And keep the focus on you a little bit here before we get to the race.

Donna Brothers  07:38

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Well, Cherie and I aren’t friends. We know each other through horse racing. Her husband, David ngordo is a bloodstock agent, which means he buys horses for people. And my husband Frank brothers retired from training in 2009 and then he became a blood stock agent, very successful. He bought horses for Starlight racing. He retired in 2022 so they are friends. My husband is friends with David and Gordo, and because of that, when we see each other out in Saratoga Springs, you know, we’re always very cordial, friendly to one another, and so it’s not like Cherie and I hang out. We don’t hang out outside of just different situations that put us together, but I asked for the walk over with Cherie specifically because I thought, even though her horse is a long shot, and this is before I knew I was going to pick her horse, I wanted her to be taken seriously. And not that my colleagues wouldn’t have taken her seriously, but I just know how much part and effort she puts into this game. And just to say something about Cherie beyond that that most people don’t know, or nobody knows, really, because I haven’t talked about it, I have a friend who’s autistic. He’s just he’s, I think he’s going to turn 21 in July, and he still lives with his parents, but he loves the horses, and so he’ll email me all the time, and he’ll essentially give me the rundown of what just happened in the Kentucky Derby like I wasn’t there, but he knows everything, and he’ll believe me, in the next couple days, I’ll get an email from him that’s going to tell me all about every horse in the Preakness who has a chance and who doesn’t. And so I wanted to try to get him a job at the track, because he had worked in in barns with, you know, like show horses, just pleasure horses. And so I went to Cherie DeVoe last summer and said, Is there any chance you could make room for this kid, and he’s going to need some shepherding, because I knew I could trust her situation and her barn with him, and it wouldn’t be thrown into the wolves. And so she worked with him all summer long. Her and her assistant worked with him all summer long. They’re going to hire him again this summer in Saratoga Springs. That’s the kind of person that Cherie DeVoe is. So not only does she nurture her horses and know her horses, she cares about people and she cares about. Yeah, an autistic kid who just, you know, really wants to work with horses. So that’s the story there. And then, when we were doing the walk over, to be honest, Nestor, I liked my question. My question, you know, she’d been asked all week about what it would be like to be the first woman to win the Derby, and I didn’t want to go straight to that. And so I phrased it as in a race that’s 152 years old, it’s hard to make history. What would it mean to you to make history today? And I liked my question so much that I was really focused on my question and how she would answer it. And then, of course, she turned it on. You know, I first came here 22 years ago, and I’ve been watching you, and it’s because of women like you, and I’m like, oh, we can’t go there. This is about you, and I think a lot of people would like to see you become the first woman to win the Kentucky Derby. And so that is who Cherie is, though she’s very selfless, and she’s used to putting others and her horses first

Nestor Aparicio  11:00

boy, it was fun watching her on the rail, wasn’t it, huh? When you got to look at that, maybe on your monitor or whatever. But

Donna Brothers  11:08

I don’t have a monitor out there on horseback, but I did see it, and obviously the aftermath of the Kentucky Derby, and she was, I would say, beyond excited. Why

Nestor Aparicio  11:19

did you pick golden tempo?

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Donna Brothers  11:22

Yeah, that’s a good question. So on air, we only have 10 seconds to offer who we like and why, and I couldn’t say it in 10 seconds. So it was easier for me to just say, I’m going to root for a woman to make history. But I wouldn’t have picked golden tempo just for that. And so I’ll try to make a long story short, but I had watched the horses train Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. And it wasn’t until Tuesday morning that I got a really good look of golden tempo. And I thought he looked just a little bit maybe on the heavy side. I thought maybe the six weeks in between the Louisiana Derby and the Kentucky Derby were a bit much, you know, maybe he had put on a little weight. And I went by Cherie’s barn Tuesday morning to firm up the walk over with her. And I happened to walk up on a conversation with her and Dave, grinning, who writes for The Daily racing form. And he asked her about how the horse had been doing in the six weeks since the Louisiana derby. And she said, I finally have had a chance to tighten the screws on him. She said, in between all of his other races, there was just a month between the races. So they were just maintenance works, maintenance works. But she said, in these six weeks, I’ve been able to get two really strong works, and him in the morning, he’s finally lost some weight. He’s finally tucked up. He’s finally where I want him to be. So when Dave left, I said, Wait, are you telling me that there’s a chance that Dave grinning. So

Nestor Aparicio  12:53

go ahead

Donna Brothers  12:54

start that. So I walked up on a conversation with Cheri Devo, who was talking with Dave grinning from the daily racing form, and he had asked how he had been doing since the Louisiana Derby, and she said that she finally got a chance to put some really hard works into him that that he prior to that, she really hadn’t been able to drill down on him as much as she would like. And so after Dave left, I said, Sir, are you saying that he wasn’t really 100% fit for the Louisiana Derby yet? And she said, that’s exactly what I’m saying. She said, I finally happened where I want him. Well, if you looked at his past performances, he had already paired 291 buyer speed figures, which is sort of a number that we give to horses on how they race, and a 91 wasn’t going to be good enough to win the derby. But a lot of the other horses who had ran big numbers, like renegade had run a 106 I’m sorry he’d run a 100 commandment had run a 106 No, I have that backwards. Commandment had run a 100 renegade had run a 98 and further ado, had run a 106 I thought all three of those horses had a chance to regress, because I thought that they were sort of lifetime best efforts. And so if they regressed and golden tempo move forward, I could see a scenario where golden tempo could win the Kentucky Derby. And I couldn’t say all that in the 10 seconds that they give us on NBC, so I went with the I’m rooting for Cherie DeVoe to become the first woman to win the Kentucky Derby. But that was really why I picked him. I liked him.

Nestor Aparicio  14:33

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Donna brothers from NBC is our guest. They will have coverage this week at Laurel, or as Charlie Ekman would say Laurel and Donna. There’s no more Pimlico, right? Like, I haven’t driven down northern Parkway. I’ve talked to a lot of people. Dick Girardi actually drove down here last week, and we had lunch together up at Costas and Timonium, the spa, the York Road spa. He compares that to Saratoga. I don’t, because I’ve been to both of them, but. In the case of Pimlico and it being gone now, and Laurel. And First things first, have you ever been to Laurel? I’m I’m only asking because I would just think a lot of you on the circuit, you come in, you’re here five days, you do your Pimlico, you go home, you come back 51 weeks later, the law. I’ve been to Laurel plenty of times. This is going to be a very unique freakness this year, and I can pitch it that way, in a positive way, but certainly this is not the best case scenario for horse racing all the way around, not having the Kentucky Derby year a winter year. And once again, I think it’s just 20th year in a row you and I have done this. I worry about the future of the race here, and what it’s going to become, and how it’s going to become what the Preakness was for me, 3040, years ago, which was really a civic institution. It’s something where the city shut down for five days, much more akin to what you’re used to in Louisville. I don’t know how we get that back, but I know we got to get a track back first.

Donna Brothers  15:57

Yeah. So first of all, have I been to Laurel? Believe it or not, I galloped horses when I was 18 years old for a fellow who’s deceased now named Marvin Moncrief at Laurel. And so, yes, I spent a whole, maybe a whole, summer there, and then I came back sometime in the mid 90s to ride the de Francis dash for Wayne Lucas, a horse named Lord Carson. And so, yes, I have been there. Have I been there recently? No. So you would know a whole lot more about the state of Laurel and, for that matter, Pimlico than I would. Because obviously, I haven’t been to Pimlico since last year for the Preakness Stakes, and I haven’t been to Baltimore since then, either. So in any event, I think, you know, it’s the it’s the best they can do right now is to have it hosted at Laurel. The alternative is that it could have been run in New York, which they’ve done before. I think the Preakness Stakes has been run in at New York race tracks a few times. I can’t remember the exact stats on that. It was back in the late 1800s

Nestor Aparicio  17:03

we’ll talk about that around here. You know losing

Donna Brothers  17:05

Well, it was just a temporary move again, and so I think that it’s, it’s a better alternative than taking the race out of the state right at least it’s still in the state until Pimlico is back up and ready to host it. As for the future of the Preakness Stakes. I think the writing’s on the wall now we’re going to have three out of the last five Kentucky Derby winners didn’t come back into the Preakness Stakes. And I think that means that you you have to look at changing the spacing much more seriously than they’ve really looked at it in the last few years. Nestor, I think if they changed it to a month later, so first Saturday in May, 1 Saturday in June, 1 Saturday in July for the Belmont Stakes, it would make the whole card on Friday and Saturday at Pimlico a better card, because the horses that are the best horses in the country typically race Derby weekend. So Churchill Downs has all sorts of grade one, grade two, grade three races, and those horses run there. There’s no way they’re going to come back in two weeks, but they will come back in four weeks if the strength of the program is good at Pimlico, which you know right now. George Ann Hale, who’s the director of racing at Pimlico and was the racing secretary for many years, her hands have been tied. She knows that even if she writes those races, they’re not going to be able to fill them because those horses just raced two weeks ago. So I think it will strengthen the whole card, the whole undercard on Preakness day, as for what New York does, that’s up to New York, if they decide not to change, then their race is a week later. Nobody’s going to run back a mile and a half a week later. And so it would sort of force their hand. They would have to move. They would have to move the Belmont Stakes,

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Nestor Aparicio  18:54

Belmont on Fourth of July weekend. I mean, what has held this up in your mind? If you and I are having a real drink about this and talking about this? What? Clearly, no one wants their horse to run in two weeks. That that is an antiquated thought. And that’s not that’s last century, not this century, and you’re involved with NBC and Fox and all the other you know, alphabets trying to get involved in this race to make the Triple Crown the Triple Crown and have it blossom again. The derby winners got to run in the Preakness. That, to me that’s fundamental, even if the Preakness is condemned and falling apart, as it was the last couple of years. Without that, you don’t have a triple crown. Without that, it doesn’t serve anyone in the sport, as I see it, and I’m completely an outsider at this point, but I would think that the horse racing Gods should have been much more attuned to this over the last 10 years. I hope they can fix it. I believe they want to fix it. There’s a lot of money involved in fixing it, but I just scratch my head and. Say, where was the better reasoning in this to, if you skip the Preakness, then, then the Belmont, then becomes diminished unto itself, correct? I mean, that doesn’t help Naira at all.

Donna Brothers  20:14

I think it became political. Quite frankly, I think it came down to, first of all, the NBC contract with the Preakness Stakes ends this year, and so NBC has been in negotiations with the people who are essentially Maryland Racing Association, who are now going to stage the Preakness Stakes going forward, to get the Preakness Stakes back and then just, I don’t know, a couple of weeks before the Kentucky Derby, it was announced that Churchill Downs bought the rights to the Preakness Stakes, which, which certainly bodes well for NBC Sports. I think, prior to that, naira was dangling the carrot that, if you give it to us and put it on Fox, then we’ll make a bigger deal out of these two legs and and we’ll have you move the Preakness Stakes a week. Maybe make it three weeks instead of two weeks and instead of four weeks. But I don’t think three weeks would move the needle for the Kentucky Derby winner, and I definitely don’t think three weeks would help strengthen the undercard program. So you

Nestor Aparicio  21:25

think four is the magic number. You think if we move the Preakness to Memorial Day weekend, moving another week back, that won’t be ideal. Ideals for in your mind, correct? I want to make sure I’m speaking the right language here. Four and four would be ideal. It

Donna Brothers  21:40

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depends on what you want. Do you want Memorial Day weekend or do you want the Derby winner? Right? And so I think you want the Derby winner. I think whether it’s Memorial Day weekend or not, you want the Derby winner there. And how are you more likely to get the Derby winner? Is a four week spacing Now, keep in mind, Nestor, I’m not trying to make it easier for the Kentucky Derby winner. Because not only is the Derby winner more likely to come back in four weeks, so is the horse that finished second, third, fourth and fifth in the Kentucky Derby. So I think it’s going to be a stronger field. I think it’s going to be a more contentious field. I think it’ll make it harder for the Derby winner to win that second leg of the Triple Crown, because everybody’s coming back, and maybe horses who didn’t have enough points, just like in this year’s Derby, also come back for the Preakness Stakes. So I don’t think it makes it easier for them, but I think it makes it more palatable for the horsemen. And so I think it’s just again, you know, the writings on the wall, but I don’t think three weeks moves the needle at all.

Nestor Aparicio  22:41

I’m rooting for the sport, right? I’m rooting for the biggest Preakness we can have and the best ride we can have at Pimlico. And I mean, it’s a hole in the ground right now. So we’re resurrecting this race in some new way. What’s going on with you? Your last Derby, your choice give me like I can’t. I don’t know that I can accept the Kentucky Derby without you there with the winner making me cry after the race. Donna,

Donna Brothers  23:08

Oh, it’ll be fine. You know, Nestor, I know you put a lot of work into your radio show, and my NBC colleagues and I put a lot of work into the shows that we do, and I think a lot of people find it hard to accept that I would walk away from that. But what they don’t realize is that what they see me do on TV is the 1% of what I do, the other 99% is sitting in front of a computer for five to six hours a day, every day, in the lead up to the Kentucky Derby and then in the fall and the lead up to the Breeders Cup. So after the Triple Crown, I don’t really get much time off from the work, because we immediately go into the road to the Breeders Cup, and I’m in Saratoga Springs all summer. And so I have to follow racing. Racing isn’t the kind of thing you can just catch up with. You have to keep up with it if you’re going to cover it at the level that we do with NBC. And so it had just gotten to be where I felt like and especially after we lost the Belmont Stakes to Fox Sports, I used to cover an event called the Kentucky three day event in Lexington, Kentucky, which was the weekend before the derby that was on NBC. We lost both of those in 2020 a lot of the shows that we were doing in the lead up to the Derby, the road to the Breeders Cup, they went into the studio, and if they’re in the studio, I’m not there. And so it got to where I was doing three shows a year, and it really, truly was the 1% of what I did was what you would see on air. And I just didn’t want to spend that much time in front of the computer anymore. I turned 60 in April, and I thought that felt like a nice, nice round number, but I had told my producer two years ago that this would be my last Derby, and I don’t have any regrets. There’s a young lady named Andy being cone who’s covered horse racing for FanDuel TV. Her father’s a horse trainer. She’s an exercise rider. She gallops horses. For norm Cassie at Churchill Downs, and she is so good on TV. She’s very enthusiastic, She’s bright, she’s got high energy, she’s passionate about the sport. People in the sport love her, and so I think you’re gonna love her. I think you will miss me for five minutes on next year’s Derby coverage, and then you’ll fall in love with Andy van Koen. Am

Nestor Aparicio  25:26

I allowed to call you a year from now and have you on and preview the Preakness? Are you going to say I don’t know anything about the Preakness? I’m not studying it. Are you going to give me that?

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Donna Brothers  25:35

I’m going to say I don’t know anything about the Preakness? I think you should have Randy Moss or Andy being Cohn or Jerry Bailey, that’s what I’m going to say.

Nestor Aparicio  25:44

Are you going to wear hat next year and like, go sit some What are you going to do with

Donna Brothers  25:50

yeah, that’s, you know, I had that conversation with my colleague Randy Moss recently, and I think that so you go to the races for a couple of reasons, but one of the reasons you go to the races is on a big day. Now, on a on an average day when they’re not covering those races, specifically and at a high level, you go to the races to see the horses. You go to the races to see them in the flesh, to see them run. But on a big day, really, the only reason to go to the races is to be seen, because you’re going to see more of the racing and the horses on TV, especially with the coverage that NBC offers, right? And so I thought about this year’s Breeders Cup, and it’s at Keeneland, do I want to go? And then I started thinking, do I want to be seen, or do I want to see? And my answer was, I want to see. So I think I will watch even the Breeders Cup from home. Does that mean I won’t go to the track anymore? No, I will go to the track on the days that aren’t massively televised with great coverage. But I and especially at Saratoga, because we have a home up there and we’re there all summer, but I probably won’t be there on the big days anytime soon, maybe, later.

Nestor Aparicio  27:01

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Well, if I find you at Saratoga, maybe later in the summer, I’ll get up and make a visit with you or and I got to get back to a Kentucky Derby every year. I haven’t been to the derby in like 15 years, and I haven’t been to the track in Churchill since they’ve really remodeled, the remodeling and all that stuff. It has been quite a run with you. If this is your last visit here, because you will decline for lack of knowledge in your professionalism, I would at least say that I hope at some point you do put a dress on and just go to the track and have some fun, because you put a lot of work into this. So if you’re going to retire, at least let it be fun for you.

Donna Brothers  27:37

And I have friends who love racing, so yes, I’ll do some girlfriends days at the races, family days at the races, but maybe not the biggest days.

Nestor Aparicio  27:47

Hey, come out to cost us with us at the OTB at Timonium, and we can watch the watch the races from all over the world. Donna Brothers is here. She will be there on NBC coverage on Saturday from Laurel. And I will, I’m going to leave this at the end, and I don’t want to offend you, but Laurel is not ball. Not Baltimore, I want to tell you, and all the NBC people, it’s Maryland, but it’s not really Baltimore. So we got to get the race back to Baltimore, and I’m sure we will, and maybe, maybe we’ll even talk you into coming back and seeing the new Pimlico at some point here. If we get

Donna Brothers  28:19

Nestor the new pimlico’s going to be so great. You’re going to forget about these growing pains. It looks like it’s going to be a fantastic venue. So just focus on the future. The new Pimlico, it will come.

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Nestor Aparicio  28:30

That’s why I keep you around. Donna Brothers is here from NBC. She’s down in Louisville. She will be shipping to Laurel, if not, Baltimore, and BWI later on in the week, we have Preakness Stakes happening this weekend, and I didn’t even get a look at the race with you, but we will do that with Randy Moss later on in the week. I am Nestor. We are W NS the am 1570 to Baltimore, and we never stop talking Baltimore positive. Stay with us.