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Old 02-09-2015, 07:32 PM   #196
Stillriledup
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Originally Posted by jballscalls
I think you're way off base with these comparisons. expanded gaming and about 3,000 other reasons are to blame for the decline in popularity. You're also comparing times when there wasn't many other options for gaming/sport and there was no internet. Essentially it was a whole different world.

to me it sounds like you just don't like announcers, which is fine, that's your opinion and that's fine. I'd be interested to do a poll amongst horseplayers and race fans on whether they'd prefer an announcer or no announcer.
Someone has to pay the announcer's salary....maybe if the track saves money on salaries they could pass that savings onto the customer? I don't know how the math works, but if the customers can get better prices on bets and concessions and drfs they would probably do without the announcer.

Tracks do all have announcers, so maybe the math works out for them, maybe they have determined that an announcer creates bigger betting handles by adding excitement to calls, i dont think tracks would pay announcers a salary if the revenue the announcer created was less than the actual salary.

As far as whether people prefer an announcer or not, i think the real question is does an announcer get people to bet more money on a particular track. Maybe if the Announcer is Durkin or Denman, but what about a track where the announcer is criticized a lot, like maybe Tampa for example. Are people betting more money because of Richard Grunder?
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Old 02-09-2015, 07:34 PM   #197
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Originally Posted by EMD4ME
If you bring your girlfriend to the track or a date or a wife or a friend, it is vital that the announcer make things exciting.

Even without those scenarios, it is imperative that an announcer make the place ALIVE. I agree.
If your wife or girlfriend is depending on the announcer for "excitement"...then you must be doing something wrong.
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Old 02-09-2015, 07:43 PM   #198
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Originally Posted by Stillriledup
Someone has to pay the announcer's salary....maybe if the track saves money on salaries they could pass that savings onto the customer? I don't know how the math works, but if the customers can get better prices on bets and concessions and drfs they would probably do without the announcer.

Tracks do all have announcers, so maybe the math works out for them, maybe they have determined that an announcer creates bigger betting handles by adding excitement to calls, i dont think tracks would pay announcers a salary if the revenue the announcer created was less than the actual salary.

As far as whether people prefer an announcer or not, i think the real question is does an announcer get people to bet more money on a particular track. Maybe if the Announcer is Durkin or Denman, but what about a track where the announcer is criticized a lot, like maybe Tampa for example. Are people betting more money because of Richard Grunder?
I'm not even going to get into this with you. Have a good evening
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Old 02-09-2015, 07:48 PM   #199
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One thing I can say for sure is that I hate going to a simulcast facility where you can't hear the call of the race. Definitely takes away from the whole racing experince, IMO.
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Old 02-09-2015, 08:11 PM   #200
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Originally Posted by jballscalls
I think you're way off base with these comparisons. expanded gaming and about 3,000 other reasons are to blame for the decline in popularity. You're also comparing times when there wasn't many other options for gaming/sport and there was no internet. Essentially it was a whole different world.

to me it sounds like you just don't like announcers, which is fine, that's your opinion and that's fine. I'd be interested to do a poll amongst horseplayers and race fans on whether they'd prefer an announcer or no announcer.
I like announcers! As I said, I really miss Vic's calls. And Trevor has been a delight to listen to all these years. I also enjoyed Dave Johnson back in the day.

But... I don't think they are IMPORTANT to the sport. They aren't worth arguing about. They aren't worth going on the internet and having huge discussions about how this guy is terrible or this one made a mistake or whatever.

The essence of horse racing is about the competition and the betting. Announcers provide a function-- they allow people who can't tell what is happening to obtain some information about the running of the race. That's why we have them. But they aren't important to the sport-- which is confirmed by the fact that the sport did much better when the announcers weren't as skilled as they are now.
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Old 02-09-2015, 08:13 PM   #201
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Originally Posted by EMD4ME
Oh yeah.... Tom Durkin had zero impact on 'Victory Gallop, a FINAL surge, it's going to be desperately close.....IT's TOOO CLOSE TOOOOO CALLLLL'

yeah, he added nothing to that race.

Could you imagine "name another Joe Shmo' announcer making that call?

It would DEFINATELY take away from the moment
There were probably 70,000 people at Belmont Park that day. They were all screaming. Do you think one of them heard Durkin's call?

Indeed, I doubt more than 100 people heard Durkin's call when it was made. Most of America heard Dave Johnson on ABC, remember.

That call was purely for people watching the replay later.
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Old 02-09-2015, 09:15 PM   #202
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Originally Posted by NJ Stinks
One thing I can say for sure is that I hate going to a simulcast facility where you can't hear the call of the race. Definitely takes away from the whole racing experince, IMO.
From my vantage point, the more professional the player, the less sound they want to hear......I prefer NO sound..
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Old 02-10-2015, 01:45 AM   #203
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Originally Posted by dilanesp
I don't think Durkin proves what you think it proves. Indeed, Durkin and Denman's heydays coincided with the decline and destruction of the sport.

When the sport was most popular, there were either no calls at all or very basic race callers like Joe Hernandez, Hal Moore, Harry Henson, Fred Capossella, and Jack Drees at most tracks.

I'm not saying Durkin or Denman made the sport less popular, but they clearly didn't make it more popular or arrest its decline.

Somehow in the sport's glory years, it didn't need an announcer to add "atmosphere". (Perhaps similar to baseball's and boxing's glory years where there was a lot less noise at baseball games and boxing matches too.)
There was NOTHING basic about any of those guys. Except for accuracy and professionalism.

They were the VOICES of horse racing. Fans hung on their every word. The very first thing I began to love about our sport was how Harry Henson described the action at Del Mar. I was a fan of HIS first before really embracing the sport.

To this day fans reminisce about things all those gentlemen said 50 years ago.

Basic? Try Brilliant.
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Old 02-10-2015, 01:57 AM   #204
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A lot of the guys today should listen to Chic Anderson. There was a guy who understood how to convey emotion without shrieking in the big races.

For example, Collmus is one of my all-time favourites, he's excellent on the whole, but in the last sixteenth of the I'll Have Another - Bodemeister Preakness he sounded like Guy Smiley. Seriously. Well, as seriously as you can take a reference to Guy Smiley but that's the first thing that crossed my mind.
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Old 02-10-2015, 03:09 AM   #205
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5PGGfTKxw4

Wouldn't races like this be helped by announcers.

They add so much to racing

Watch this race in silent and tell me its anywhere as close to as exciting as it is with Ken Miller's call.
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Old 02-10-2015, 03:38 PM   #206
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Originally Posted by v j stauffer
There was NOTHING basic about any of those guys. Except for accuracy and professionalism.

They were the VOICES of horse racing. Fans hung on their every word. The very first thing I began to love about our sport was how Harry Henson described the action at Del Mar. I was a fan of HIS first before really embracing the sport.

To this day fans reminisce about things all those gentlemen said 50 years ago.

Basic? Try Brilliant.
Vic, actually I have an extremely high opinion of Joe Hernandez, especially. I think he basically invented your craft, at least in this country.

There are some tape recordings of very old radio broadcasts of the Kentucky Derby, from the 1930's, with pioneer broadcasters like Ted Husing and Clem McCarthy and Bryan Field calling the race, very badly. They couldn't really put together a call-- they meandered, failed to paint a coherent picture of what was going on, and failed to describe the position of the horses.

I've also heard a recording of Joe Hernandez calling the 1936 Santa Anita Handicap, won by Top Row over Time Supply. It is the opposite-- it is careful, clear, and precise. Hernandez had figured out how to do it and had created the basic contours of the modern race call. Everyone who does it now owes a debt to him.

But what I meant by "basic" is this-- Hernandez, Moore, Henson, and their ilk did not add any or much color commentary to the race. They gave an accurate call, but not one with a lot of flourishes. That was how it was done back then.

But don't confuse "basic" with "bad". These guys, especially Hernandez and Henson, were very good. It's just that the idea that you need someone coming up with colorful turns of phrase or the sport is boring is a very modern idea. During the sport's golden era, people managed to get excited by the race, not the call.
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Old 02-10-2015, 03:47 PM   #207
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dilanesp
I don't think Durkin proves what you think it proves. Indeed, Durkin and Denman's heydays coincided with the decline and destruction of the sport.

When the sport was most popular, there were either no calls at all or very basic race callers like Joe Hernandez, Hal Moore, Harry Henson, Fred Capossella, and Jack Drees at most tracks.

I'm not saying Durkin or Denman made the sport less popular, but they clearly didn't make it more popular or arrest its decline.

Somehow in the sport's glory years, it didn't need an announcer to add "atmosphere". (Perhaps similar to baseball's and boxing's glory years where there was a lot less noise at baseball games and boxing matches too.)
You couldn't be more wrong IMO. In his prime, Durkin was an INTEGRAL part of the race...not just an observer perched high above describing the action.

His TC and BC calls were ETCHED in people's minds as much as the performances on the racetrack itself.

There was a very good reason why he called those races all those years...it wasn't just luck.
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Old 02-10-2015, 03:58 PM   #208
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Originally Posted by dilanesp
Vic, actually I have an extremely high opinion of Joe Hernandez, especially. I think he basically invented your craft, at least in this country.

There are some tape recordings of very old radio broadcasts of the Kentucky Derby, from the 1930's, with pioneer broadcasters like Ted Husing and Clem McCarthy and Bryan Field calling the race, very badly. They couldn't really put together a call-- they meandered, failed to paint a coherent picture of what was going on, and failed to describe the position of the horses.

I've also heard a recording of Joe Hernandez calling the 1936 Santa Anita Handicap, won by Top Row over Time Supply. It is the opposite-- it is careful, clear, and precise. Hernandez had figured out how to do it and had created the basic contours of the modern race call. Everyone who does it now owes a debt to him.

But what I meant by "basic" is this-- Hernandez, Moore, Henson, and their ilk did not add any or much color commentary to the race. They gave an accurate call, but not one with a lot of flourishes. That was how it was done back then.

But don't confuse "basic" with "bad". These guys, especially Hernandez and Henson, were very good. It's just that the idea that you need someone coming up with colorful turns of phrase or the sport is boring is a very modern idea. During the sport's golden era, people managed to get excited by the race, not the call.
I love the "basic" call, announcers like Bob Meyer at Yonkers was great for these understated calls, real old school but very enjoyable to listen to. His counterpart at RR Jack E Lee was a little more flamboyant, but i also appreciated his "color" , just different styles of calling in the 80s and 90s.

I also loved Marshall Cassidy, one of my all time favorites and i loved that he wouldn't speak after the wire, if it got down to the final yards he would give a quick "in front" and try and say it before the horse was past the line, i loved that about him, not sure if all his calls were "before the line" calls but he made it a habit of doing that, which i thought put him apart from a lot of people.

Other guys i loved in that era were Bob Weems from Monmouth, Phil Georgeff at Arlington and Tony Bentley from the Fair Grounds...all great announcers with their own unique style.

Here's a 1968 call of Dr Fager by Harry Henson, interesting race at a mile and an eighth if you watch the jocks at the start, this almost looks like a quarter horse race, almost all the riders are "sending" you dont see jocks ride like this today in route races, the jocks were "all in" down the backstretch, very interesting to see these jocks riding this way, you dont see this in today's game.

[YT="Harry calling Dr Fager"]O9bucY6hLbA[/YT]
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Old 02-10-2015, 04:16 PM   #209
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I just ignore SRU. He seems to be the pot stirrer that almost every forum has. Just let him mess about in his business and get out of the way
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Old 02-10-2015, 04:20 PM   #210
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Originally Posted by PaceAdvantage
You couldn't be more wrong IMO. In his prime, Durkin was an INTEGRAL part of the race...not just an observer perched high above describing the action.

His TC and BC calls were ETCHED in people's minds as much as the performances on the racetrack itself.

There was a very good reason why he called those races all those years...it wasn't just luck.
I attended many Breeders' Cups and one Triple Crown attempt, and I can report that I did not hear one word of any of Durkin's calls during those races from the 3/8th pole to the wire. Neither did anyone else. Yet the crowd screamed.

You seriously believe ANYONE watching, say, the 1989 Breeders' Cup Classic live at Gulfstream was listening to the ANNOUNCER?
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