Steve Kornacki Joins the TDN Writers’ Room Podcast Presented by Keeneland

[Wandering Eyes]

Steve Kornacki is more than the political junkie who, for years, has had a way of explaining things when it comes to elections that help make everything make sense. He does so by turning statistics into an easy-to-understand formula and displaying his findings on an interactive map that is known as the big board.

But Kornacki sometimes needs a break from politics, and he has found one in horse racing. It's been his passion since his uncle started taking him to the harness races at Scarborough Downs in Maine. He loves to handicap and approaches racing with the same sort of mind set he uses for politics. The numbers matter.

Kornacki will once again be part of NBC's coverage of this week's GI Kentucky Derby. But before he left we grabbed him for the TDN Writers' Room Podcast presented by Keeneland. He was this week's Gainesway Guest of the Week.

Like many others, Kornacki believes that the pace may just decide the race.

“We're hardly alone in this, I'm sure, but I'll be looking at the pace scenario in the race,” he said. “There was that sense after they introduced the point system back in 2013, that all the sprinters are out of it now and it's slowed down and the speed is holding a lot more. And we saw that for a long time there. It seems that over the last three years that's changed. You had that torrid pace in 2022 that got Rich Strike to the wire first. Mage came from off the pace and then last year Mystik Dan was sort of mid-pack. Sierra Leone and Forever Young rounded out the trifecta and they also came from behind. You had closers coming in there, taking advantage of a pace that heated up a little. So that seems to be the mini-trend. Then, obviously, when you look at the composition of the field this year, you just see speed, speed, speed, especially on the inside. You just see so much of it.”

He hasn't made his pick yet but he has a few horses in mind.

 

“I haven't landed yet and I'm torn, to be honest,” Kornacki said. “I've got a couple of closers that I'm really interested in. I'm really interested mainly in the closers. Grande really interests me. I was a little curious about Tiztastic, and maybe to get even a little crazier about it, Chunk of Gold. This is a gut thing, this is not a numbers thing, but I can't shake the feeling that it's just all about the pace. Then again, watch, maybe a couple of them won't break and a couple of them take back because they're afraid of a hot pace. In that case, maybe Rodriguez with Mike Smith, goes to the front and takes him to the lead and they wire the field.”

So, what kind of handicapper is he?

“Not a good one,” he joked. “I'm always hoping to do better. I do like speed figures. I pay a lot of attention to speed figures, to the Beyers. It's been really interesting hearing Randy (Moss) , talk about those, just given that he's part of the team that complies them. I also like trying to figure out the pace scenario in a race.”

In our “Fastest Horse of the Week” segment, which is sponsored by WinStar, we went over the many reasons there are breed to WinStar stallion Heartland. The fastest horse of the week was Keeneland allowance winner Unmatched Wisdom (Cairo Prince), who ran a 103.

Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders' Association, West Point Thoroughbreds, 1/ST Racing and 1/ST TV, the team of Moss, Zoe Cadman and Bill Finley held the first ever TDN Writers' Room Oaks-Derby draft. All 20 horses in the GI Kentucky Derby and all 14 in the GI Kentucky Oaks were drafted and points will be awarded on a 5-3-1 basis. Zoe Cadman took Journalism (Curlin) with the first overall pick. They also handicapped the major stakes on the Oaks and Derby undercards.

Click here to watch the podcast or here to listen.

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