Mike Penna was working at Keeneland race track when he was interviewed for a radio show hosted by Pete Kules about what he was doing at the track.

“I was scared to death the first time he had me on the air,” Penna said. “I was shaking like a leaf.”

But Penna did fine. And the two lovers of thoroughbred racing had a shared idea for a radio network to broadcast horse races.

That dream came to fruition three years ago with the formation of the Horse Racing Radio Network. Penna and Kules will be at Saratoga Race Course today for HRRN’s broadcast of the Travers. Air time is 4 p.m.

Eight stations nationally are carrying the HRRN Travers feed, including two in the Capital Region. WTMM-FM (104.5) and WABY-AM (1160) will have the broadcasts of the Travers, along with the King’s Bishop, Bernard Baruch and Victory Ride stakes.

The genesis of HRRN started with Kules.

“My partner [Kules], who is 75 years old, he and I have been together now for five years,” Penna said. “He actually started doing races there. He would only go up there once a year, and he would do their one big race. When I came on board with him five years ago, the concept was very well received.

“We would go to Turfway Park, and we would broadcast for like an hour. We would cover the races and have interviews, and we would broadcast it to one station here in Lexington, Ky. That’s where everything got started. The response was so good that I told Pete, ‘Why don’t we look at expanding this and try to make this a national radio network for the sport.’ That’s what we started doing.”

Soon, they were broadcasting races from Churchill Downs. A radio station in Louisville signed up to get the broadcasts. Slowly, HRRN caught on.

“This is our third full season of doing 50 or more broadcasts,” Penna said. “We travel all over the country, broadcasting these big races on the radio.”

HRRN broadcast the Preakness Stakes in May. It also has the rights to the Breeders’ Cup for the second straight year.

HRRN will be broadcasting more races from Saratoga, although not on the radio here. However, they are available on HRRN’s Web site, www.horseracingradio.net.

TV COVERAGE

ESPN and ESPN HD will have Travers coverage starting at 4:30 p.m. Capital Region native Joe Tessitore will host. Randy Moss, Tom Durkin and Jerry Bailey are the analysts.

New gig for Russo

Chris “Mad Dog” Russo won’t be unemployed for long.

Russo, who left WFAN’s “Mike and the Mad Dog” sports talk show last Thursday after nearly 19 years, will, as expected, join Sirius XM Radio with his own sports talk show. It will be called “The Mad Dog Sports Show” and start

Sept. 15. The show will run from 2 to 7 p.m., going up against most of the show of his former partner, Mike Francesa.

Russo’s show will be heard on Sirius channel 123, and XM channel 144. The two satellite radio com­panies recently merged.

Russo will be a guest on John Graney's show Sunday on WGDJ-AM (1300). Graney's show starts at 6 p.m.

college football

Believe it or not, the college football season kicks off today. Announcers, in order of play-by-play and analyst, are in parentheses.

Tonight

CBS College Sports — Fort Valley State at Valdosta State, 8 p.m. (Tom Hart/Roland Williams).

Thursday

ESPNU — Vanderbilt at Miami (Ohio), 7:30 p.m. (Mike Gleason/John Congemi).

SNY — Hofstra at Connecticut, 7:30 p.m. (announcers TBA).

ESPN and ESPN HD — North Carolina State at South Carolina, 8 p.m. (Chris Fowler/Craig James and Jesse Palmer).

MSG Plus — Wake Forest at Baylor, 8 p.m. (announcers TBA).

ESPN2 and ESPN2 HD — Oregon State at Stanford, 9 p.m. (Ron Franklin/Ed Cunningham).

Friday

ESPN Classic — Temple at Army, 7 p.m. (Eric Collins/Shawn King).

ESPN and ESPN HD — Southern Methodist at Rice, 8 p.m. (Joe Tessitore/Rodney Gilmore).