Quote:
Originally Posted by castaway01
I might regret reviving this thread, but listening to the racecalls from Tuesday, Jessica has improved quite a bit. Kudos to her for putting the work in.
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That's great to hear. Nobody is born to be a race caller. It's an acquired skill that most anybody can learn and do adequately.
I've helped several announcers get started. The very first thing I say is practice and repetition is the MOST important building block.
And I mean practice in 250 race blocks.
Learning on the job is a thousand times more difficult.
Mistakes will be made. However, when you're on live the world knows. YOU know they are hearing them. That's extremely hard, extremely hard to deal with.
With practice, announcers learn how to deal with rough patches.
I probably make just as many mistakes as when I first started. The difference in experience is you guys are less likely to know. I can get past them without calling attention***
When you're calling live a pregnant pause of 2 seconds "feels" like 2 minutes. If you haven't practiced dealing with it that's when trouble starts.
One of the single most important things in race calling is confidence. Knowing you can do the job and do it well. If you go into a race with many doubts because of preparation or experience or conditions or any other of about 20 things you're set up to fail.
You have to know you can do it. Tell yourself you've dealt with many things in the past and gotten through it fine.
Even with the practice it's one thing to deal with calling a race. Entirely different to be the "announcer".
Calls put through to the booth during a race.
Marketing calling as the horses are loading to tell remind you about tote bag day in two weeks.
12 first time starters, seven of which are wearing red silks.
Giveaways and winners circle presentations when the horses are parading in front of you. Once they are gone and warming up on the backside you are F'ed. Panic starts to set in because you know you're not going to know them.
Struggling begets struggling. When your confidence is shot. It's VERY hard to get back.
The only way is repetition, repetition, repetition.
One thing that is the death of new announcers is trying to do too much.
To this day I have a plaque in my booth. It reads " Just Call The Damn Race".
95% of the crap calls I've made in my life are because I tried to say too much. Nobody will EVER criticize a call for what you DIDN'T say. Identify the horses. Place them in their proper spots, don't rush, clearly and concisely report what you see. Manufacturing embellishments is a ticking time bomb. Jocks names, editorializing, trying to ring a winner too early will cause explosions.
When you get the confidence to make a stock nuts and bolts call over and over again. The bells and whistles will work their way in without you even realizing you're doing it.
There are a hundred things that can slip you up that can only be learned through experience.
One of the things I found especially difficult when I first started was calling EVERY race on a 10 race card.
When young announcers are coming up they guest announce a race here and there and don't have to think about anything but that one chance to shine.
When you become the main voice, they throw another race at you every 25 minutes. It's much tougher than you ever anticipated.
Gotta go try to get them around there at OP today.
***Here's an example of ADVANCED race calling. Remember I said more experienced announcers will know how to hide mistakes, so you don't know?
I was 20,000 into my career before I trotted out this one. Horses are running around the far turn. You get to the horse that's running in 5th and call him by the WRONG name. You know immediately you've messed it up. It wasn't BUD'S GIRL it should have been MY LADY DUSTY. Now as you're going through the field you get to the real BUD'S GIRL in 7th. You purposely get that one wrong as well. Knowing that next time through you'll switch them back and the great majority of the people will be none the wiser. That's OLD SCHOOL race calling boys and girls.
Have fun today!
