Monday Morning Message with Jason Beem Oct. 26, 2026

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

A good Monday morning to you all, and welcome to Breeders’ Cup week! I'm 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, though 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 50 people changed 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 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 the weather across the country, as I drove from Seattle to Louisville over 3.5 days. I 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. One of my frustrations at the time was that I’m a railbird, and there weren’t many places 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 completely changed my opinion. Night racing has always been the most fun atmosphere for horse racing for me. 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. Overall, though, at Churchill I found some better spots to watch, and the place had obviously 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 the same spot as the old one, but turned around and obviously a fair bit bigger. There’s also stadium-style seating all around it, but it doesn’t feel overwhelming when you’re down in it, and there are 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 I haven’t seen in a while and getting 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. Being around the paddock, seeing the horses, and visiting with friends to talk about the races is so much of the fun. Just yesterday, some friends from back in Seattle called me to say they’ll be at Breeders’ Cup, and that made me so excited to see them this weekend and talk horses.  

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