I understand his statement that it was a big crowd so he was going to speak. Corbin Kentucky is a famous Kentucky mountain town, the home of KFC. Chicken is in their blood.
In any case, three points:
1. He's right about cock fighting being a state issue.
2. He doesn't have enough money to now have to respond to this.
3. My sense is that he did it on purpose. Questionable publicity is better than no publicity, and free publicity is better than expensive publicity.
That is certainly possible. Bevin is 30 points down in the polls and can't compete in the money game. He's only got six weeks to catch up. He might be desperate enough to pull this stunt in an attempt to move the needle his way.