00:00Let me ask you, unless I'm missing something, I mean, the last couple of years here at Saratoga, we've seen
00:06the winners be in that stalking position.
00:09I don't see a whole lot of speed in this race.
00:12So, I mean, outside of Power Shift, what are we talking?
00:16A whole lot of horses bunched up around the turn here?
00:20Absolutely.
00:21And that's why I picked Power Shift in the second spot, because I think he has a big opportunity to
00:25steal this race up front.
00:26What's funny is Power Shift and Renegade go for the same owner, Mike Rapoli, and they kind of have totally
00:32different running styles, right?
00:33Power Shift is going to be up front.
00:35Renegade is going to be coming from way, way out of it.
00:37I think you want to upgrade the horses that don't have to come from so far out of it.
00:42Even Commandment, who is like a mid-pack horse, he actually could be sitting like third or fourth in this
00:47race, because there are just not that many early speed horses.
00:50I think he will benefit from that.
00:52And you make a great point, Joe.
00:53This is actually the first time in 109 years we don't have one horse from the Preakness that is running
00:59back in the Belmont three weeks ago.
01:02It is a totally different field of horses that were in the Preakness, and we didn't have one horse this
01:07year running all three legs of the Triple Crown.
01:09It just shows you how much racing is changing now in this modern era.
01:13We see it in all the sports, right?
01:15Like load management.
01:16We don't have the pitchers pitching.
01:17Some of these teams have six rotation starters, and basketball, we're not playing on the back-to-backs as much.
01:25Same sort of thing in horse racing.
01:27And I do think in the next couple of years, we're actually going to get the expanded Triple Crown, because
01:32we want to have the races where we get a lot of the best horses running.
01:35It does happen this year in the Belmont, but we'd love to see big fields of 13 and 14 in
01:40each of these races.
01:42I love the talk here, and by the way, we're talking to Juno Boccoli here, setting up here for the
01:45Belmont Stakes this weekend.
01:47I do want to ask you that question, which comes up on a lot of people's minds, is we understand
01:51the traditionalists.
01:51It's supposed to be really hard, Juno, to win a Triple Crown.
01:54That's why not every horse can do this here.
01:56But also from a fan perspective, even the casual fans, which brings in more money to racing and adds more
02:02excitement.
02:02If you're looking from a traditionalist point of view or to just say nowadays, I'm with you on this.
02:07I think if you expand the marketplace with more people involved, more people will get into horse racing.
02:11And the excitement used to be, okay, you're always going to get a Kentucky Derby winner, which means the Preakness
02:16is huge,
02:17because you want to cheer on to see if the Kentucky Derby winner can win the Preakness.
02:21The minute you take that Triple Crown threat out of it, you lose the eyeballs here.
02:25So being around the racing industry for yourself, Juno, what do you hear from everybody else?
02:29Do more people think it's a good thing to say, let's bring more people into the tent and expand it?
02:34Or are the traditionalists going to take over and say, it's never going to happen?
02:38The traditionalists are starting to really lose the fight because we've already had to change it, Donnie, right?
02:42We're already, right now, not running the third leg at Belmont, and it's already at a shorter distance.
02:47So we've already changed it, right?
02:49It's still the same date, but we've already made tweaks to it.
02:52There were tweaks to the Triple Crown years ago.
02:54This was a thing that was like an unofficial Triple Crown, right?
02:58Like the Belmont used to be run before the Kentucky Derby.
03:01There have been changes through the years.
03:02We know it.
03:04We wanted to kind of be a little bit stubborn and push back, but you're absolutely right, Donnie.
03:08We want the best horses to show up.
03:09We want the Derby winner to be there on the Preakness, and that will be better for the sport of
03:13horse racing always
03:14because it keeps the eyeballs in the big-name horses that we know.
03:18Those names become popular, and people know them.
03:21So that's what we want to do.
03:22And on these big weekends, we love to send everybody to DRF.com
03:26because that's where we can help you with everything you need.
03:28If you're a gambler, if you want to just follow along with the news, if you're looking for help playing
03:33the races,
03:34we've got you all covered at shop.drf.com.
03:37And I think for a lot of the people watching, you may want to check out our daily racing forum
03:41platform that's called Newbie.
03:42If you're a sports better, but you don't really play the races all that much, this is perfect for you
03:47because it's got a lot of graphs, a lot of colors, it shows you all the information that we use
03:51in racing,
03:52and it makes it very user-friendly.
03:54So a couple things you want to check out, DRF Newbie, and head on over to shop.drf.com,
03:59and we'll get you all ready on these big days.
04:02Fantastic stuff there, Gino.
04:03Definitely go check out that information.
04:04Also, for the people who have never been to Saratoga, what's it actually like, Gino?
04:08Oh, this is my first time.
04:10How crazy is that, too?
04:11I got the butterflies in my stomach as soon as I was driving up.
04:16You feel horse racing everywhere.
04:18You see it.
04:19I cannot wait to be there the next few days, guys.
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