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Tuesday, April 29, 2014

As Derby Week Begins, Racing at the Crossroads

SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY, April 28, 2014—From the backside to the executive offices to the press box, the racing community often laments the lack of meaningful media coverage of the sport.

The biggest stories are usually the saddest, the most embarrassing: the Fix Six scandal, the animal cruelty of Ernie Paragallo, the Barbaro and Eight Belles tragedies, the sudden equine death syndrome mystery and, most recently, the PETA/Asmussen tapes.

In the case of the latter, outside events unwittingly took some of the heat off racing created by the undercover sting operation. The NCAA Tournament was in high gear when the story broke. No foul, no harm.

But now, with Derby Week upon us, the sports world is mired in a new obsession; the hideous, hurtful Donald Sterling tapes. However, don’t expect the fallout from the “scandalous” PETA video to disappear anytime soon.

It’s Monday and the Asmussen story already has been dredged up by the New York Daily News, Newsday and a Lexington, KY-based business website.

But whatever coverage this story gets the rest of this week, it will pale in comparison to what will be learned by the general public during the highly rated network broadcast of Saturday’s Kentucky Derby.

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