Durkin Honored at TCA Dinner

“Tom revolutionized race calling,” longtime broadcaster Tom Hammond said this past Tuesday night. He wasn’t referring to himself, of course, but to Tom Durkin, sitting a few feet away, below the lectern, in a crowded dining room at Keeneland Race Course. The occasion was the Thoroughbred Club of America’s 84th Testimonial Dinner. The TCA was recognizing Durkin as its 2015 Honored Guest, and Hammond was explaining why. “Tom would determine the themes, the storylines, of a big race…and his recalls were like a story,” he said. “They had a beginning, a middle and an end. When people listen to these calls years from now, they will be just as thrilled as we all were when we heard them live. They are timeless.”

There aren’t many fans who would argue with Hammond. When Durkin retired after 43 years in the booth last year, he left behind a celebrated body of work comprised of thousands of vignettes, most under a minute and fifty seconds. Those race calls, for the Breeders’ Cup, the Triple Crown series, and, for the last 24 years of his career, at NYRA, became the very sound of racing for a generation of fans. At Tuesday’s dinner, well over a hundred Lexingtonians gathered to say thanks.

Hammond gave some history on Durkin. A native of Chicago. A graduate of Saint Norbert in Wisconsin. (“Where he majored—and this is important—in drama.”) A chart caller for the Daily Racing Form. A race caller at string of tracks whose names became familiar only deep into the progression.

In all, Durkin called races at 50 tracks in six countries, and, as a video highlight reel underscored, was on hand for some of racing’s most memorable moments. Personal Ensign’s last-gasp win over Winning Colors in the 1988 Breeders’ Cup Distaff. Cigar’s incomparable victory in the ’95 Classic. The defeat of Curlin by the filly Rags to Riches in the 2007 Belmont.

“It’s my pleasure to introduce the greatest racecaller of all time, Tom Durkin,” Hammond wrapped. Again, who was going to argue?

For his part, Durkin, during a 15-minute speech, showed why he was so good at what he did. At turns infusing humor and poignance into his address, Durkin called himself the “luckiest SOB on the face of the earth” for being able to do sometime he loved for a living. “My career was enormously satisfying and a source of great happiness for me, and for you, I hope it was just kind of fun,” he said. He then began…at the beginning. “I was born Irish. I was genetically purposed to love language, to tell stories,” he said, before adding by way of example, “In the span of a few short years, St. Patrick himself was able to convert an entire race of pagans into devout Catholics simply by telling stories, and throwing in some doctrine now and then.”

Over the years, Durkin kept a notebook of ideas and phrases to describe races. Six pages were dedicated to pace. “From sizzling to somnolent—which I actually used twice—from torrid to tepid to torpid, that’s just the Irish in me,” he said.

Durkin elaborated on his personal history through a series of quick one-liners: “A guy named Jim is hitchhiking in Wisconsin on Highway 57. A guy named Marty picks him up. They start talking. Marty runs horse races at county fairs. Jim tells him that I’m the assistant announcer at Arlington Park. A big lie. I get the job calling races on weekends, but I’m still working at my uncle’s golf club factory in Chicago. Miserable.” Etc.

Durkin was calling races at the Meadowlands in 1984 when he was named, somewhat surprisingly, as the voice of an upstart new series called the Breeders’ Cup. He was still searching for his comfort zone, announcing for a televised audience of millions, four years later when the event was held for the first time in Kentucky at Churchill Downs. The nerves were so intense, in fact, that Durkin resorted to a hypnotist, who in turn prescribed an under-the-spell suggestion whereby Durkin, at the mere sight of the Twin Spires, would relax, breath deeply, and “capture the drama.”

It worked. “Nov. 5, 1988. I can say without fear of contradiction that that was the greatest racecard ever presented,” said Durkin. “For all us, that day provided more drama than any other day in American racing before or since. Angel Cordero, who just a few months before was inducted into the Hall of Fame, won the opening double in two million-dollar races. D. Wayne Lukas had an almost unprecedented day. He won three $1 million races, and came within winning a fourth with Winning Colors. The French filly Miesque became the first two-time Breeders’ Cup winner. Personal Ensign and Winning Colors in the Distaff: quite simply, one of the greatest races of all time. And, of course, the midnight Classic, won by Alysheba. You had to see it to believe it. Unfortunately, it was so dark, hardly anybody saw it, and that included me.”

Durkin seamlessly segued into present day. “That was in Louisville, and now it’s on to Lexington,” he said. “Friends, enjoy and appreciate the Breeders’ Cup of 2015, this defining moment for your beloved Keeneland. Enjoy it all, where the best of the best come to Keeneland, and American racing comes full circle. From the foals in the field to the finish line in just a few furlongs.”

That concluded Durkin’s speech, but maybe he had encapsulated things best earlier when he said, “The reason my career was successful can be summed up in one magnificent word: horses. Without their heroic displays, without their relentless desire to prevail, without their sheer beauty, without what those horses did, I just might as well have used my voice to recite the phone book for the last 43 years.”