COMMENTARY : Breeders’ Cup Telecasts: Six Misses, One Hit

The NBC telecast of the Breeders’ Cup jamboree of championship horse races last Saturday recalls this classic line about the erection of faulty Candlestick Park: “Don’t blame the architect. It was his first ballpark.”

NBC has been telecasting the Breeders’ Cup since its inception six years ago, but this year it was as if it were doing it for the first time because new production head Terry O’Neill rearranged his production lineup so that John Gonzalez shifted from producer to director and Terry Ewert took over as the new producer.

The result was two telecasts. One was a jumble of unfocused rambling through the first six races. It was almost as if these races, all worth at least a million dollars and featuring championship horses, hardly mattered, so eager were the TV people to keep reminding people about the finale between Easy Goer and Sunday Silence.

The second telecast was outstanding. NBC captured the drama of the Classic race--before, during and after--with good pictures and solid reportage.

There was little uniformity to the telecast during the early races. In some races, we saw morning-line odds, in some we didn’t. Too often they gave us the Evelyn Woods School of Speed Reading, with the odds on and off screen in a jiffy. Lacking Harvey Pack, there was a sense of betting smarts missing.

There were too many voices, no real focus. Frequent hesitations by host Dick Enberg seemed to reflect confusion in the production truck, and we occasionally heard instructions from the truck on the air. Synchronization between commentary and taped action was spotty. Reporter Trevor Denman was all too effusive most of the time.

Exultant winning jockey Angel Cordero lit up the screen dismounting after the first race, but we never heard from him. Reporters Jenny Ornsteen and Sharon Smith frequently interviewed people of no particular news value--losing jockeys and trainers--only because they were available.

There were few sustained replays of any of the races before the Classic. Tom Hammond did an excellent analysis of the Classic in a replay, but they showed only snatches of reruns in the other races. With 4 1/2 hours of air time, the reruns rated more air time.

Oddly, jockey Gregg McCarron, not the most articulate or commanding presence, wound up with the most significant role in pre-race analysis. Hammond’s questioning astutely set up McCarron, who was astride a pony in the post parades, yet Hammond might well have provided keener answers than McCarron under a different scenario.

Easy Goer and Sunday Silence, of course, were the star attractions who merited the most attention, but NBC went to ridiculous lengths in its star fawning. In the midst of early races, they would break in for shots of the marquee aces. They inserted taped shots of the respective jockeys, Pat Day and Chris McCarron, leaving their hotels in the morning -- heart-stopping pictures, those. They even shifted to a look at Sunday Silence while the horses were preparing to go into the gate in the Turf race.

They were so obsessed with the Classic, I’m surprised they didn’t run a ribbon across the screen with proclamations such as “an hour and 27 minutes until Easy Goer vs. Sunday Silence,” etc.

On the plus side were some good features: close-up shots of Zilzal’s sweating flanks, good synchronization of Gonzalez’ race pictures with Tom Durkin’s exciting calls and sharp NBC freeze-frame pictures of close finishes. Nix on an inane feature on Shug McGaughey’s exercising.

When they zeroed in on the Classic, they were all over the event, building up tension with tight close-ups of the principals, equine and human; good scene-setting with odds talk by Enberg and Hammond, and good on-the-spot reportage. After trainer Jack Van Berg’s worried remarks about the rained-on track being a possible hindrance to Easy Goer, Denman chipped in with significant assurance from McGaughey that it shouldn’t bother his horse.

The Classic race was thrilling, Durkin’s call memorable, the post-race conversations with jocks McCarron and Day on the money. NBC faulted again at the finish, though, by going off the air in puzzling fashion: running tapes and pulsating calls by Durkin -- not of this stirring Classic, but of Breeders’ Cup races of previous years.