I agree, the NBC coverage stunk. I'm as big an admirerer of Jerry Bailey's accomplishements as anybody, but to cut the coverage of the actual racing to only his race and the Classic while only showing half the stretch runs of all the other races in order to get in all the "soft and fuzzy stuff" and repeated replays of his stretch run and endless comparisons with Gary Steven's final race was a disgrace.
To be honest, I suspect the fact that the Million's included Bailey's final race was the only reason the whole thing was televised. I think the media has come to the conclussion that racing itself is not as important or interesting as all the "human interest stuff" they can come up with. Remember the Breeder's Cup coverage - it could have been subtitled "Garet Gomez's Return from Drug Addiction". Yes, there are a lot of human interest stories in the game but the name of the sport is horse racing - emphasis on HORSE and RACING.

Bob