Seibel and Rice to host Hambletonian on NBC

Gary Seibel, harness racing’s expert commentator, and award winning reporter Kenny Rice, will host NBC’s coverage of the 83rd Hambletonian at the Meadowlands on Saturday, Aug. 2 with the one-hour live broadcast beginning at 2 p.m.  

Seibel, a veteran harness racing broadcaster, has been a part of the Hambletonian broadcast since 1989. Seibel has covered racing for ESPN, SportsChannel and Prime Network. He also co-hosted the American Championship Harness Series programs and the Breeders Crown, harness racing's divisional championship series, for more than a decade.

Seibel currently serves as an anchor for the TVG Network, the interactive horse racing network, and hosts TVG’s harness racing show Drive Time. 

Seibel has been with TVG since its inception and is one of the sport’s acknowledged authorities. With his in-depth knowledge of both thoroughbred and harness racing, his years of experience calling races and his varied communication skills, Seibel is a key component of the Hambletonian broadcast.

Rice is stepping in for regular co-host Tom Hammond, who is on assignment in Beijing for the Olympics. Rice, a news reporter from Lexington, Ky. has been a contributing reporter for NBC Thoroughbred racing coverage since 1999. He was an original member of the Hervey-award winning  Breeders Crown broadcast team since 1984 and co-hosted the Hambletonian broadcast on ESPN in 1988.

Rice was sports director of the Lexington ABC affiliate for 19 years, producing and hosting over 75 specials on UK football, basketball and baseball as well Cincinnati Reds baseball and Cincinnati Bengals football. He's covered six Final Fours, the World Series, NFL playoffs, college bowl games, professional boxing and is currently the bull riding play-by-play man for NBC. He also hosted the 2007 Eclipse Awards for the NTRA.

The braodcast team also includes NBC's Donna Barton Brothers, who will file her reports on horseback.

Barton Brothers, who retired in 1998 as the all-time leading money-earner among female jockeys and now trails only Julie Krone, calls on her experience to interview jockeys on horseback after each race during NBC’s coverage of Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes.  This will be her second harness race, but she has already jogged, trained and gone behind the gate with a Standardbred for a feature on the similarities between the two breeds in last year’s Hambletonian broadcast.

Barton Brothers joined NBC Sports in 2000 for the network’s broadcast of the Breeders’ Cup World Thoroughbred Championships. She was part of NBC’s Eclipse Award-winning team at the 2001 Breeders’ Cup, 2002 Preakness Stakes and 2007 Kentucky Derby coverage.  

Barton Brothers hails from a family of riders, including her brother and sister, as well as her mother, Patty Barton, who, in 1969, became one of the first half dozen women to be licensed as a jockey.

In 1998, Barton Brothers began her broadcast career working as an in-house interviewer for the Fairgrounds in New Orleans. In the spring of 1999, she joined Mike Battaglia as a race analyst for Churchill Downs’ Paddock Preview show.  Additionally, Brothers does on-location work for TVG, the horseracing network.

Mike Battaglia will be joining his broadcast partners for a second time. A thoroughbred racing analyst for NBC Sports, Battaglia also serves as a handicapper and reporter on NBC’s coverage of the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes. Battaglia first joined NBC Sports in 1993.

Battaglia began his professional broadcast career in 1973 as an announcer and morning linemaker at Turfway Park [then called Latonia Race Course] in Florence, Ky., and he still holds both positions at Turfway. In 1974, he became the morning linemaker at both Keeneland and Churchill Downs and continues in that role today.  

In addition to his morning line duties, Battaglia was hired as the Churchill Downs track announcer in the fall of 1977 and called his first Kentucky Derby in 1978. He called 19 consecutive Derbies through 1996. In 1997, Battaglia moved from the announcer’s booth to host the television simulcasts and the Churchill Downs Racing Review, a nightly recap show.

Battaglia called the Kentucky Derby on ABC for six consecutive years and was the host of several ESPN horse racing telecasts in the 1980s.

The show will be produced by Peter Lasser.

Broadcast time for the $1.5 million Hambletonian and the filly companion event, the $850,000 Hambletonian Oaks, is on the schedule at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 2, at the Meadowlands.

The Hambletonian, owned and administered by the New Jersey-based Hambletonian Society, remains the only harness race to be nationally televised by one of the four major networks, thanks to a long-standing partnership with the Meadowlands Racetrack. 

The classic trotting race is celebrating 27 years at the Meadowlands Racetrack in East Rutherford, New Jersey, which has held the event since 1981. It is the longest-running host venue. (Hambletonian Society)

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