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> STAN ISAACS >Out of Left Field |
| The Dazzling Race Calls of Tom Durkin |
> Kentucky Derby winner Monarchos will be a contender at Saturday's Belmont Stakes |
One major appeal of Belmont race:
Tom Durkin's inspired race calling
By STAN ISAACS
of TheColumnists.com
EVEN IF you are not a horse
racing fan and don't have a bet on Saturday's Belmont Stakes,
it is worth tuning in to the NBC telecast (starting 4:30 PM,
eastern time) to experience the thrill of a big horse race invariably
provided by race caller Tom Durkin. He is the best.
Durkin is the track caller for the New York races at Belmont,
Aqueduct and Saratoga. He has been bringing his special brand
of excitement to the full card of Breeder's Cup races for 17
years. And this year he is, for the first time, calling the Triple
Crown races, the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and now the Belmont
Stakes.
A race caller is always under presssure to get it right. Never
more so than when he is working a race before a national television
audience. Durkin says, "A man at the Derby told me, you
know, you are one gaffe away from being a national joke."
Racetrack lore is rich with examples of race callers making the
wrong calls in big races. In the 1947 Preakness when radio was
the big medium, the legendary race caller Clem McCarthy mistook
the red jockey colors of Faultless for those of Kentucky Derby
winner, Jet Pilot, and mistakenly called Jet Pilot the winner.
He realized his mistake almost instantaneously and immediately
apologized to the audience.
Durkin has been calling races for some 30 years. He regards his
first Derby call last month as his most difficult assignment.
"Because the scrutiny is so much more intense for the Derby,"
he explained. "And there's nothing as intense as a Triple
Crown attempt. There hasn't been a triple crown winner in 20
years. When the horses are at the top of the stretch in the Derby
with a chance to win and be in position to make that attempt,
those last two furlongs have to be the most intense 30 seconds
in all of sport."
Durkin is 50, a burly six-footer with thinning, curly reddish
hair, a ruddy complexion, blue eyes and a whimsical air. Durkin
brings, knowledge, wit and a keen sense of drama to his calls.
He says, "My task is to describe the races accurately and
appropriately. I don't make the fifth race at Cahokia Downs sound
like the Belmont Stakes. In both cases, though, I have to be
correct. Sometimes high drama is appropriate. Or humor when the
situation presents itself."
He once called a harness race at the Meadowlands involving a
duel between a horse named No, No, No and Please Please by imitating
a dialogue between the two, saying, "Please, Please,…No,
No, No" and heightening the pleading and rejecting as the
horses dueled to the wire.
He said, "I think what I do has to be consistent with the
fact that we are in both the gambling and entertainment business.
You can't start making jokes because people's money is involved.
But we are not involved with a cure for cancer, either."
Durkin, who came out of Chicago and was a drama student at at
St. Norbert College in Wisconsin, says, "My drama teacher,
Kelly Collum, kept drilling one thing into us: energy, energy,
energy. I think that has been a great influence on me."
Durkin's call is something of a rising and falling wave that
builds to a crescendo as the horses thrash down the stretch toward
the finish. He seemingly constructs a short story in each race,
with a beginning at the start, a mid-race pause and a pounding
finish.
He is so capable and seemingly so loosey-goosey it is hard to
believes he approaches big races with something close to dread.
He prepares by indulging in self-hypnosis and, "I take a
drug called inderal which stops excessive flow of adrenalin.
It's used by people who suffer from stage fright."
At Belmont he works alone in a small booth 8 by 10 feet. He looks
down at the track through field glasses from on high. He memorizes
the horses, using several magic markers matching jockeys' colors
to highlight the horses' names on the program.
He is ever on the alert for different ways of describing actions.
He has compiled a vocabulary of words on his computer. Titled,
"Ideas/Words for Race Calls," it lists words, expressions
and directions for all aspects of a race. He has "Top 40
Stuff" for big races. Phrases such as "strides away
powerfully," "a colossal victory" and "a
photo finish that doesn't deserve a loser." He is invariably
fresh, often coming up with new combinations that fit the moment.
For all the pressure of his first Derby call on television, Durkin
came through handily despite a mistake that earned him some criticism.
His voice pulsated with bursts of energy as the horses made their
way around the oval. The audience heard:
"The opening half-mile was the fastest in Derby history.
(voice rising)… Songandaprayer is blistering down the backstretch…and
the pent-up power of Point Given is rising….Jorge Chavez
gets busy on Monarchos and they are surging as they move toward
the top of the stretch….And (name drawn out) Con-ga-ree
has come away with the lead…record time….here comes
Monarchos under a heavy drive on the outside…Invisible Ink
is there…Point Given not today….here comes Monarchos
who sweeps to the lead. He is pulling away by two, he is pulling
away by three…Jorge Chavez and Monarchos have won the Kentucky
Derby….Absolutely thrilling. (as the screen showed the horse
galloping out) Jorge Chavez on top of the world, Jorge Chavez
on top of the Kentucky Derby winner."
Durkin announced the winning time, 1:59 and 4/5, declaring, "He
was as fast as Secretariat.'" A mistake. Secretariat had
won the Derby in 1:59 and 2/5.
"I thought I knew Secretariat's time like my own name,"
Durkin said. "I blew it. I felt bad but it wasn't one of
those pick-up-the-phone and throw-it-out-the-window mistakes."
On Saturday Durkin will, as always, call the entire card of races
in addition to the Belmont. "I am the track caller,"
he said. "And actually I like calling some races before
I do the big one. When I do the full Breeders Cup card, I am
most tense before the first race."
Oh yes: and he called a good Preakness, too.
© 2001 by Stan Isaacs.
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