(12-08-2022, 08:47 PM)cardcrimson Wrote: During my adolescence my two passions were Stanford sports and horse racing. I spent many, many Saturdays either at Stanford games or at Bay Meadows. I ended up working in horse racing media, primarily on the publicity end. I worked for the New York Racing Association (the company that operates Aqueduct, Belmont, and Saratoga) for five years and the experience pretty much eliminated the hard pro-California racing stance I had in my youth, but I'm still very much on the side of Sunday Silence. I haven't worked in racing since 2016 and I'm glad I left because I have become cynical about the state of the racing industry, but when I look back on my experiences I am blown away that an unconnected kid from California like myself got paid to watch and write about major races and interview legends like Allen Jerkens.
Great history. Thanks for sharing. Quite a wealth of experiences on this board in a variety of areas. Fun to see. I've been to most of the major sporting events in the US, though have not made it to the Kentucky Derby. On my to do list. Did make it to Saratoga when I lived in Central New York. Great event, and a lot of fun. What got you hooked on racing?
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My father was a horseplayer and I would tag along with him to the track. I decided to pursue a career in racing and attended the Race Track Industry Program at the University of Arizona. While I was there Terry McGrath asked me to go through the RTIP's library and find a copy of a chart from a race at Hollywood Park in the early 1960s in which he won a bunch of money. I was able to find it. One regret I have is that I never properly met Terry McGrath because I had left the Bay Area for college and then my career by the time we started communicating through the messaging system on TOS.
I never made it to the Kentucky Derby and I don't feel particularly inclined to go. I have been to Churchill Downs for regular race days and didn't care for it. I did get to work the Belmont Stakes. Saratoga is a wonderful place but the work schedule was brutal. Aqueduct was a bleak place to work for six straight months but the deferred maintenance ambiance and rough crowd gave it a weird charm.
(12-08-2022, 07:42 PM)Phogge Wrote: The industry needed Flightline to race in the Pegasus and Meiden but it's always about money. A once in a lifetime horse who only ran six races. I'm hoping Arabian Knight is as good as Baffert thinks he is.
Watching Flightline dominant the competition gave me no joy and made it clear to me that it's good that I left racing. He's a freakishly talented horse, but he also represents a lot of the things that are wrong with the sport. He's a fast-but-fragile horse who will get to pass along his fragile genes after making THREE starts in a year. Back in the mid and late 1990s the divisions were much deeper and horses raced more often, which made racing throughout the year so much more compelling. Now the move is to minimize your number of losses throughout the year by racing sparingly and then try to win the Breeders' Cup. Give me a horse like Skip Away who danced almost every dance and won 18 times from 38 starts over Flightline who made six starts in 19 months.
To bring this back to announcers, Durkin is the best American announcer I have heard in my lifetime. He knew how to deliver a great call in the biggest races. My only quibble with him is that at the end of his career he didn't seem to give his best when it was, say, a rainy Thursday at Belmont in October. Denman also was very good back in the day, but he has lost something off his fastball and relies way too much on his catchphrases.
