Monday Morning Message with Jason Beem Oct. 26, 2026

Jason discusses getting to go to the races as a fan again after a return visit to Churchill Downs. 

A good Monday morning to you all and welcome to Breeders’ Cup week! Writing today from Louisville, Kentucky, and will make my way to Lexington in the morning to go check out Keeneland.

I’m going to try to head out there a few mornings while I’m here, although I think most of the final workouts have already been done. Still excited to go see the horses and more importantly see all the people and hear where all the steam is. Last time I went to the Breeders' Cup in 2017, I feel like I had 50 people change my mind and put me on horses for the weekend that I actually didn’t like. So this time I think I’m going to try to listen and let it just pass through. But I do love hearing people’s opinions on the races. 

 Yesterday I had the good pleasure to take in the races at Churchill Downs for the Stars of Tomorrow I card. It was a most resplendent day under the TwinSpires (see what I did there?), as it was 74 and sunny throughout the 11-race card. I was quite lucky with weather all across the country as I made the drive from Seattle out here to Louisville over 3.5 days. Had maybe an hour of rain the whole time and had gorgeous sunny weather for 90% of the 2,000 miles I drove. 

I have had a bit of a funny relationship with Churchill Downs as a live racing venue since I first went in 2006. I remember going back then and it just wasn’t my cup of tea. I think one of my frustrations at the time was that I’m a railbird, and there weren’t many places there to actually go up on the rail. Because there were box seats basically everywhere along the rail. I remember sitting up in the old wooden grandstand seats, but the infield was always kind of a mess, and it was tough to see your horses for much of the race. 

Thirteen years passed between visits and when I went back for night racing in 2019, I changed my opinion completely. Night racing to me is always the most fun atmosphere for horse racing. I don’t know if it’s because I grew up going to night racing at Longacres or what, but it’s always just the most fun for me. I think overall though at Churchill I just found some better spots to watch, and obviously the place had gotten a few facelifts over that time.

This visit yesterday was my first time seeing and visiting the new paddock area. It’s basically in a similar spot as the old one, but turned around and obviously a fair bit bigger. There’s also stadium-type seating all around it, but it doesn’t feel overwhelming when you’re down in it and there’s a lot of people around. Then again, I’m not a horse. Funny enough the horse that was acting up the most yesterday in the second race ended up winning at 25-1. 

The real reason I enjoyed this visit so much though was just getting to see some racing friends that I haven’t seen in a while and to get to see the horses up close. I’m at the races usually 150 or more times a year, but 95% of that time, I’m upstairs in the announcer’s booth. Getting to be around the paddock and see the horses and visit with friends and talk about the races is so much of the fun of this whole thing. Just yesterday some friends from back in Seattle called me to tell me they’ll be at Breeders’ Cup, and that made me so excited to get to see them this weekend and talk horses.  

Hope you all have a great week and look forward to talking about the Breeders' Cup all this week.