Former Jockey Donna Barton Brothers Analyzes Races on Horseback When Mario Gutierrez came from virtually nowhere to ride rode I'll Have Another to victory in the Kentucky Derby, Donna Barton Brothers was waiting just beyond the finish line to interview him in her role as analyst for NBC - on horseback. For Brothers, being on a horse comes more naturally than holding a microphone. Her mother, Patti Barton, was a trailblazer for women jockeys, and Brothers, her sister and her brother followed in her footsteps. When Brothers retired in 1998, she was the second-winningest female rider in the United States by money earned. But she never strayed too far away from the sport she loved. She is married to a horse trainer, Frank Brothers, and works as an analyst for NBC Sports and TVG. How did your mother inspire you to be a jockey? My mother was one of the first half-dozen women to be licensed as a female jockey in the United States. That was in 1969, and I was 3 years old. My memory was that my mother was always a jockey. To be honest, I grew up wanting to be anything but a jockey. My brother and sister both wanted to ride and be jockeys. We were around horses growing up, but it wasn't that fascinating to me. I grew up thinking that would be a very mundane occupation. When I graduated from high school, I figured I wasn't quite prepared to go to college, so I figured I'll go work at the track and make some money so I could pay my way through college. Mom and Dad neither encouraged or discouraged us in being jockeys, but at the end of the day, I found out that at the racetrack is where I felt really comfortable. I guess because it all came so easily, I didn't realize I did had a talent for it. Certainly growing up around the horses and my mother's inspirations, I didn't recognize it as such. There's a lot of talented female riders right now; what have they been able to bring to the game? I think it's great. When Julie Krone, Patti Cooksey and I, the top three female jockeys, all retired within a three-year span, everyone said, "Good, all the good girl jockey are gone." We begged to differ. We knew there were a lot of female jockeys that were either undiscovered or weren't getting the mounts that they deserved. Certainly they were untapped talent. Chantal Sutherland is a perfect example, but Rosie Napravnik hadn't even started riding by the time we all retired. The great thing about being a jockey as an athlete, unlike being a professional baseball or football player, everyone has to play the same thing within a few pounds. It's really hard to convince me and other successful female jockeys that if we all weigh somewhere between 100 and 112 pounds that we can't all be equally strong and thus equally good at what we do. It just stands to reason that in this profession, especially where women are pretty much known to be a little horse crazy at times, that there is going to be some successful female jockeys. It might come a little easier for them than for men because a lot of them don't have to watch their weight as much. You recently wrote the book "Inside Track: Insider's Guide to Horse Racing." How did you come up with the idea, and were you trying to get more people into the sport? Yes, it was definitely aimed at the casual fan. When I retired from being a jockey, I married horse trainer Frank Brothers. I was around a lot of the owners then - you meet a lot of them in the paddock as a jockey, but you're not entertaining them. You recognize a lot of owners and racing fans who are passionate about the sport were somewhat alienated by their friends and family who didn't embrace it as much as we did. Once I got to meet the friends and family, I realized that they did not understand it, and nobody was taking the time to explain it to them. At that time, I thought, I need to buy so and so a book, and then I looked around and there was no book. I saw a couple of other books: intro to Nascar, girls guide to Nascar, and books like that. But there were no books like that in thoroughbred racing, and I felt like we really needed a book like that. I felt like that for about five years before I finally said, "Nobody else is going to write this book, so I guess I have to do it." What is it about this sport that has captivated you to make it your life's work? When I was 36 years old in 2002, I went to college finally - I always wanted to go. I studied physiology, and I was really captivated by psychology, too. I thought maybe I'll be a psychologist and get a masters and then a doctorate. Then I realized, you know what I really love and what I've taken for granted my whole life is horse racing. It's just part of who I am. It's in my bones. It's in my veins. It's created me. It's every fiber of who I am, and it's put food on my table since I was born. And it's not that I feel indebted to it. I guess what I love about it is when you come to the backside of the racetrack, people aren't politically correct. They are honest, and you don't have to worry about what people are thinking or where they stand. You don't have to watch everything you say because it might be taken out of context. People on the racetrack say what they mean and mean what they say. As far as sports and competitions go, its not like horse shows. There's no judging; you either win or you lose. If you can't win, then you figure out something you can do better to improve your horse's performance. I like the fact that racetrack is all in black and white. It's not something that only I understand because I was born and raised in it, but anyone can understand if they look into it and see everything they can see. Why do you think the Triple Crown is important to the sport of horse racing? I don't think the Triple Crown is important to the sport of horse racing. I mean this hasn't happened in 34 years. I'm 46, which means I was 12 the last time we had one. Ever since I can remember people would say, racing needs this or this is going to be the nail in the coffin. Keeneland Racetrack had its highest numbers in attendance both on-track and off-track handle in their most recent concluded spring meet. Our last Derby broadcast had the highest numbers that it had ever seen and the biggest crowd it had ever seen. I think horse racing is fine and will always be fine. We will always face challenges, and we're going to need to step up to the plate and meet those challenges. I think that the Triple Crown is exciting because the wait has been 34 years. After 1978, when Affirmed won the Triple Crown, people started saying that it's easy because we had three triple crowns winner in the 70s. But since then, it's become so elusive. I think it's like the girl that you want to go out with but you can't. It's just become so elusive. We just want to see what it feels like. I mean, I was 12 and I barely remember the last Triple Crown winner, and so I would like to see what it feels like. I'd like to witness it, and we would like to all say, "We saw that horse." There's no better definition of a truly great 3-year-old than the Triple Crown series. If a horse can win all three races, we know collectively that we've just seen a really good horse. Does the sport needs reform? What do you think about I'll Have Another's trainer, Doug O'Neill? I do think the sport needs reform. There's a lot of people in the racing industry that were upset with Joe Drape and the issues he brought up in his article, but I wasn't one of them. I feel that visibility is good. I feel like there's been times when we've seen the worst that we're capable of in this sport, but we feel as a group that we can do better, especially when it comes to the lower-level claiming horse. They don't get the same media attention or the same type of care and attention from their trainers and owners. They all deserve to be taken care of very well. We can definitely do better. As far as Doug O'Neill's charges go, he's never had a bad test for an illegal drug or a narcotic. There are a lot of top trainers who are racing all around the country who have had a bad test for illegal drugs. By and large, it's a contamination. We test in nanograms, and one nanogram is a positive test. I think what needs to happen is that we need to have a national testing procedure that we agree upon. The racing industry needs to get on the same page and get its act together to make that happen. I'm not sure that federal legislation is the answer. If we can't figure it out, then federal legislation might have to happen. How hard is interviewing on horseback? I should just tell you that it's really hard. I think if you went down to Louisiana and you went up to a fisherman who was out on his shrimping boat all day long and said, "Hey, we really want to do a story about you and do you want us to come to your boat or do you want to come to our studio?" I think he would definitely say, "Come to my boat." For me, being on horseback is like being on my boat. My first national telecast I did was NBC Breeders" Cup in 2000. Five hours of live programming with eight races. The only thing that kept me from shaking so much from nerves and that I would look ridiculous on camera was the fact that I was on a horse and my body had other things to do. I was able to deal with the nervous energy. I've ridden since my earliest memory, and riding the horse itself is the easiest part - it comes second nature to me. That interview on horseback is the easiest thing I do all day because it comes natural to me to be on a horse, and the fact that I'm talking to someone who just won a huge race. Whatever race it is, is a huge race to them. It's exciting to be the first one there and to be able to almost share the emotion and the aftermath of that. It's hard to put into words how special it is for me. In 2010 on Kentucky Oaks day, you got unseated from a horse live on the "Today" show. What was going through your mind? Commercial! I was thinking I could not believe this was happening. I wasn't really embarrassed, but it totally killed the entire segment because I could tell we weren't going to commercial. I wasn't really embarrassed because as a rider, especially of thoroughbreds, you fall off a lot, and you almost always fall off on camera in the afternoons when you're used to people see you falling off. But you're not used to being seen by a national audience. But at the time, it was like, "O.K., I wish that hadn't gone down that way." But 10 minutes later, it was just the weight of the world off my shoulders. Because you know, in the position your in, the worst thing that can happen to you is that you fall off your horse on live TV. Well, I just fell off my horse on live TV and it wasn't that bad. At the end of the day, it made me more relaxed and I thought, "Oh well, you fell off, and it's still O.K." Explain your routine on raceday? I've already got my ponies lined up. I've got somebody that's going to bring my ponies from the paddock for the race, I don't need to worry about that. So once I get over to the paddock where the trainers and groups of people that I've walked with, then I just go ahead and get on my horse. I've got to get my spurs on if I don't have them on already - almost all horses do a little bit better with a set of spurs on. I have my saddle bag, and I tie it down so it doesn't flop all over the place. I usually just get on my horse and just sit in the paddock on my horse and watch the horses as they're being saddled and walking around to see if anything happened that I can report from the paddock. Then I follow the horses out on the racetrack, and I just keep my eye on them throughout the post parade to see if there's any unusual behavior. Jockeys show their hands pretty well in the way they warm a horse up. For instance, if there's a nice strong, brisk gallop in the warm-up, then I know they're probably going to be forwardly placed, bringing them out right out of the gates, and I'll report that. I watch them as they're in the starting gate, and then they'll load, and I'll watch for the second before they spring the latch. At the Derby, I go the wrong way of the racetrack and meet them on the backside. But at the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes, I'll go the right way on the racetrack. I'll listen to the call of the race the whole time in my ear. Sometimes, I've got monitors I can look at, but really it's almost a distraction because I'm listening to the call so intently. I'll look at the monitor just to judge if the horse that's in front is two lengths in front or a half-length in front of the horse behind him or just to see how strung out the field is. Mostly I just listen to the call of the race. When I end up next to the winning jockey, I don't often know precisely what kind of trip they had. I mean, I know they were seventh in the early going, but unless the announcer says "I need checks at the half-mile pole" I don't know about it. You can see that as a liability, because you know as an interviewer, you want a decent idea of what the answer is going to be before you ask it. If I don't know where they came from, I have no idea how to pose the question to solicit the information that I'm looking for. The reality is actually the opposite, as most of the viewers don't know where they came from either or where they were in the early goings. I do have 5-by-8 index cards with the horse, the past performance strips and key points about that. As soon as the winner crosses the wire, I'll glance at that card, and really it's just to refresh my memory. But I cannot honestly say that I had to do that at this year's Derby or Preakness. It wasn't too hard to remember the Mario Gutierrez, Doug O'Neill, I'll Have Another story. What is the most unexpected or memorable moment from your interviews at the end of Triple Crown races? I guess that would be Calvin Borel when he won his first Derby in 2007. The queen was in attendance that day, and he came back crying. It was unexpected to me because what happened was like always; I pulled out my notecards and I had all these questions in my mind based on what was down on that card. Then I started talking to Calvin, and all my questions went out of my head; they were gone. I couldn't think of a single question based on the information I had written down. So he just talked about how he wished his mom and dad were there, his brother and the horse. It was a really emotional time for him. Once I was out of questions, which didn't take me too long, and luckily he talked quite a bit about what it meant to him, I just threw it back to [Tom Hammond] and said, "Obviously, an emotional win for Calvin Borel." When Calvin rode off, I thought, I am so fired. But when I got back to the compound, all my producers congratulated me and said it was a great interview. I thought, "Did they just see the same thing I saw?" What I realized was that because I got caught up in Calvin's emotion and that conversation, I could do nothing other than converse with him. It made it a much better interview than knowing my next question before he's done talking. It really changed the game for me. I still prepare as much as always, but it's like I know what I know, and I put it in my back pocket, and if I need it, I'll use it. I've learned it's not my job to show how much I know; it's my job to pull out everything I can from them.