GP West announcer
 

Who's announcing at Gulfstream West today? It's not Pete.

Darin Gagne, harness announcer at Running Aces in Minnesota

I had no idea there was a harness track in Minnesota!

Unfortunately, I had an idea.

Lot of late nights at OTB...lol

I believe Canterbury ran harness in the 80's and 90's

They still race there.

Harness racing? I know thoroughbreds and quarters, but think harness ended a long time ago.

And they have a Texas Holdem Poker Room there too. I was tentatively planning a first-time visit to Running Aces in 2020 before everything shut down.

Maybe in 2021 or 2022!

Closing day was October 4 this year, and per their website they plan on live racing again in 2021.

Just to clarify, Canterbury has not had harness racing for several years. Running Aces' meet ended October 4th.

Correct.

Today's 4th marked the second time (in a very limited watching of his GPW race calls) where the fill-in announcer did not catch that a horse (in this case the #1) did not get away from the gate, and just described him during the race as if he was at the rear of the field.

I'd surmise that this is due to things like this not happening in harness (or at least being more immediately visible in relation to the rest of the field).

From what I've heard they have a makeshift announcer's booth(the building is gone). It may be hard to see things when you're not used to the setup.

Absolutely correct - I had forgotten about that. It's essentially a shipping container about 10 feet off the ground. I now remember Jason Beem talking about certain things he wasn't able to see given the lines of sight afforded.