Brothers Luke and Cole Jones Revolutionize Oaklawn Park Racing Coverage With Drones

Brothers Luke and Cole Jones have their gimbals locked on shooting the perfect A-roll at Oaklawn Park this GI Arkansas Derby weekend, but the significance of what they are doing goes well beyond one marquee Saturday. At Oaklawn, Chris Jones, joined by his two sons Luke and Cole, operates a company called Drone Logistics, and his answer to heightening the viewing experience for each race is simple: action.

What started as a pitch has become one of the more quietly influential upgrades in American horse racing broadcasting, reshaping how fans at home and on social media experience a meet that stretches across an entire Arkansas winter and spring.

A Family Built for the Sky

Based in Little Rock, Chris Jones merged his ties to horse racing and aeronautics, which he says is a match made in heaven for a guy who still maintains a pilot's license. A graduate of Ouachita Baptist University, located in Arkadelphia just a short distance from Hot Springs, Jones attended races with his family and Oaklawn has always been a home away from home.

The roots go deep. The family owned horses and raced with the likes of Frank Fletcher, operating under the stable name Fly Racing. Chris ran a separate aviation logistics company for the better part of 25 years after those early racing days. When it came time to merge those two worlds, the timing was right and the technology had finally caught up to the ambition.

Luke, who was recruited by Notre Dame to play football, transferred back to his home state and majored at the University of Arkansas in sports management with a minor in business marketing, while Cole landed on hospitality management in Fayetteville. Both educational tracks, it turns out, were useful preparation for running an operation that straddles television production, client relations, and precision flying.

Every Race, Not Just the Big Ones

The distinction that sets Drone Logistics apart in the industry is cadence. Tracks have deployed aerial drone technology for a couple of years now, but usage has primarily been restricted to major days. Santa Anita and Del Mar use it on a daily basis. The Jones family made daily coverage their explicit pitch at Oaklawn, and it landed.

As long as the weather holds off, the Jones boys go vertical for every race during Oaklawn's meet, which is all part of the larger show in Hot Springs. That commitment distinguishes the Drone Logistics model from what most tracks have deployed. As Chris put it directly: "We are one of the first companies to use them for race coverage. Other tracks have utilized them on big days, but we've certainly expanded on the model by coming out each and every day. That was our pitch and Louis Cella, Wayne Smith and Ron Moquett all contributed to making this possible for us at Oaklawn."

The role of Cella, Smith and Moquett as enabling figures is acknowledged explicitly by Chris, though the specific nature of their contributions, whether financial, operational, or advocacy-based, is worth pursuing for a fuller accounting of how the arrangement came together.

The Workflow: Planning, Pinpoints, and Real-Time Adjustments

Flying drones over an active racetrack during a live meet is not a plug-and-play operation. The Jones crew invests significant effort before a single propeller spins. Cole described the pre-race preparation this way: "We've spent significant time planning a flight path out to the course. The pinpoints keep us on target, but we always have to make adjustments in the middle of a flight. We communicate constantly with Oaklawn's production studio and that way we can shoot the crowd, the post parade and the loading process."

Those "pinpoints" function as GPS-guided waypoints that anchor the flight path, providing a structural framework that the pilots can then adapt in real time depending on what the broadcast needs at any given moment. The gimbals, which stabilize the camera regardless of drone movement, allow the crew to deliver broadcast-quality A-roll footage even during dynamic, unpredictable race sequences. The constant communication loop with Oaklawn's production studio means the drone feeds are integrated into the live show rather than treated as supplementary highlight material tacked on afterward.

What the Camera Sees

The enhanced views of horses warming up coupled with the races themselves have become a popular addition to the Oaklawn broadcasts. The shot list extends well beyond the race itself. Cole's description covers crowd images, the post parade, and the loading process, elements of race-day storytelling that traditional fixed cameras have always struggled to capture with the same intimacy and scale that an aerial perspective provides.

The utility extends to race administration as well. Drone Logistics has also provided video to the stewards who needed a particular angle during an inquiry. "There is a spot around the three-eighths pole where you cannot see really anything from the normal angle," Cole explained. "Our shots make it possible for them to have that extra perspective." That use case, supplying footage to stewards during official inquiries, adds a layer of institutional value that goes beyond ratings and social engagement.

According to Chris Jones, regularly allowing horseplayers to access race replays from the aerial perspective could be the next frontier. Handicapping a race by watching it from above gives viewers the chance to see movement they would otherwise miss entirely.

Value for Owners, Trainers, and Fans

The business case for daily drone coverage is not built solely on broadcast aesthetics. Luke has been direct about the commercial and practical value the footage delivers to the horsemen it captures. "It provides a ton of value for owners and the trainers," Luke said. "We've done workouts and some stables use our footage for their own social media accounts. We think the sky's the limit. Fans really enjoy seeing shots of the track when the horses are parading."

Stables repurposing Drone Logistics footage for their own social channels represents a secondary revenue and value stream that the traditional broadcast model never offered horsemen at this level of access. A trainer at Oaklawn can now show owners a workout captured from 200 feet overhead, rather than a shaky phone video from the rail. That shift in what is available to working professionals in the sport is as significant as any broadcast aesthetic upgrade.

The Larger Broadcast Context

Oaklawn Park has been one of the premier thoroughbred racetracks in the country since 1904, and its current meet, which culminates in the $1.50 million Arkansas Derby (G1) on Saturday, March 28, represents one of the most broadcast-intensive stretches on the American racing calendar. Oaklawn is offering a record 62 stakes races during its 64-day 2025-2026 racing season, with stakes purses exceeding $18.3 million. That volume of high-profile racing creates enormous demand for compelling visual content across television and social platforms alike, and it is precisely that demand that Drone Logistics is meeting on a daily basis.

The fact that Chris Jones frames drone footage as "really the best way to see everything that happens on a racetrack" is a claim that the stewards' use case, the social media applications, and the broadcast integration all support. As Oaklawn's meet continues to grow in purse money and national prominence, the aerial perspective the Jones family has built into the fabric of daily coverage will be harder to imagine doing without.