Nice work, NBC

I like the idea of a transition because casual horse racing fans went through the wringer over Barbaro. I think this Derby is going to turn people away. Sure, it's fun to wear big hats and drink Mint Juleps, but being awed by a horse only to watch him or her die, it's horrible.

 

In the public-opinion poll arena . . . fact that we're talking about a filly makes it so, so much worse.

 

The metro down the road's main head was "Big Brown delivers"

The subhead did play up Eight Belles death.

 

I edit our sports photos and lay out some pages in the morning, and I gave me SE choice of both Big Brown and 8 Belles in both color and black and white, and hung around to see how he played it.

I was very surprised to see him put the whole thing on page 3 (we actually ran a Packers rookie camp story as main art). It turned out that he took page three, and he chose Big Brown as the main and put the Eight Belles down with vets photo at the bottom of the story. I'm guessing he put it inside because of the time factor, but I was rather surprised by the decision, given the lack of quality page one material we had today.

 

yeah, because god knows the derby is as big as the super bowl.

 

"The Tuscaloosa (Ala.) News 'The Favorite Wins'"

This one made me laugh.