John Imbriale Coming Back
 

Ready to announce some races on the inner again. Nice guy....He would've done a better job than Denman did on BC day. Maybe.

http://news.bloodhorse.com/viewstory.asp?id=36450

Nice to see he's coming back to call th Big A. Always clear and precise
voice and easy to listen too.

For some reason,I always liked to hear this guy call a race.Atleast you know it's New York Racing. I have never understood why Colmus is popular.Very dull (to me.) Obviously,dull works pretty well (for some.)

You are so right. Kind of like talking to a therapist of something. He has that voice where you know everything will be ok....Unless you wheeled the chalk in which case you deserve to feel lousy.

Excellent news... it'll be nice having him back for a while.

You know Imbriale was being groomed to be the next announcer after Marshall Cassidy retired at NYRA. This was in the mid to late 80's. He had a very enthusiastic voice and call and we used to love it when he called the races.
It got derailed a tad when he committed a big blunder on Father's Day of 1987. It was a Sunday and Imbriale was calling the races in place of Cassidy. I will never forget it, he gave some rocking calls, including a real nice allowance race where John's Treasure won the race. But the feature that day(I believe it was the True North) contained Groovy and King's Swan, and Imbriale mistook or miscalled the race in the lane and called Groovy King's Swan. It was a bad blunder because Groovy smashed a long standing track record and went in 1:07:4. It was SOME effort. I was at a simulcast place full of people and it was something I will never forget. The race was over and then the time flashed up and spontaneously everyone in the place stood up and clapped and gave a standing ovation to what they had witnessed. I have never seen that before that day or since and it sayed with me because it was great to see horseplayers respect what they had seen. It was also the first time I ever made a single wager of 100 dollars or more on a bet, I played a 105 dollar Daily Double on Groovy with a claimer in teh last race named Truth Be Told trained by Pistol Pete Ferriola and ridden by David Nuesch who was adding blinkers, he won by about 13 lengths right after Groovy broke the track record in the previous race.
The problem was that the Groovy race was shown again and again throughout the year in highlight clips on in house feed, race of the week shows, and BC preview shows and they always showed it with no sound because of Imbriale's blunder.
His backup role became diminished after that for a while and then they went out and got Durkin not too many years later.
Eventually he was worked back into the backup caller role to Durkin and I always felt like had he not made that blunder that he would have been full time caller after Cassidy retired.

ok, nice story but what did the Double pay??

I think it paid 9 dollars and change. I can still see Nuesch aboard Truth Be Told in the green and gold silks of Kerry Nagel(the owner) down the lane.

[quote=oracle80]You know Imbriale was being groomed to be the next announcer after Marshall Cassidy retired at NYRA. This was in the mid to late 80's. He had a very enthusiastic voice and call and we used to love it when he called the races.
It got derailed a tad when he committed a big blunder on Father's Day of 1987. It was a Sunday and Imbriale was calling the races in place of Cassidy. I will never forget it, he gave some rocking calls, including a real nice allowance race where John's Treasure won the race. But the feature that day(I believe it was the True North) contained Groovy and King's Swan, and Imbriale mistook or miscalled the race in the lane and called Groovy King's Swan. It was a bad blunder because Groovy smashed a long standing track record and went in 1:07:4. It was SOME effort. I was at a simulcast place full of people and it was something I will never forget. The race was over and then the time flashed up and spontaneously everyone in the place stood up and clapped and gave a standing ovation to what they had witnessed. I have never seen that before that day or since and it sayed with me because it was great to see horseplayers respect what they had seen. It was also the first time I ever made a single wager of 100 dollars or more on a bet, I played a 105 dollar Daily Double on Groovy with a claimer in teh last race named Truth Be Told trained by Pistol Pete Ferriola and ridden by David Nuesch who was adding blinkers, he won by about 13 lengths right after Groovy broke the track record in the previous race.
The problem was that the Groovy race was shown again and again throughout the year in highlight clips on in house feed, race of the week shows, and BC preview shows and they always showed it with no sound because of Imbriale's blunder.
His backup role became diminished after that for a while and then they went out and got Durkin not too many years later.
Eventually he was worked back into the backup caller role to Durkin and I always felt like had he not made that blunder that he would have been full time caller after Cassidy retired.[/QUOTE]

If Imbriale got roasted so badly for an honest mistake on a sleepy Saturday at the Big A, what happens to Denman after the BC? :p

[quote=philcski]
It wasn't a sleepy saturday at the Big A. It was a big Sunday at Belmont.

[quote=oracle80]He's a decent racecaller and I'm glad he's back at NYRA for the winter.

He's no Durkin, though.

[quote=philcski]"hes no durkin" lol thats a huge compliment for mr imbriale! i think durkins the most overrated in the biz, long live wrona!


i meant to say denmans the most overrated, sorry mr durkin! lol although i still find it funny durkin called birdstone winning the belmont@toga, and still didnt like the"rehearsed" stretch call of the belmont that year

steve cross i believe his name is, the guy whos calling the races@hoosier currently, isnt bad at all

[quote=disappearingdan_akaplaya] I never cared for Durkin, either. I remember him back-in-the-day at Meadowlands. I was not a fan of his. He is too melodramatic, in my opinion. I dislike his dissing of Bernardini at the finish of the Preakness; it was unnecessary unfair, and inaccurate. :mad:

[quote=Bold Reasoning]He never called the Meadowlands, I believe you are referring to Dave Johnson.
And I think interpreting what he called in the Preak as a dis tells me what I need to know about you.
If you can't grasp that Durkin was attempting to maintain composure and give a good call while under the duress of knowing that the most popular horse in America may or may be dying at the time, and that he needed to make sure that he was projecting a lack of great concern for that rather than who won the race I can't help you. Do you honestly think that it was more important to scream and yell that a horse had won while the Derby winner was prone on the track? Hell even Albertrani looked stoic upon race completion when they cut the camera to him at races end(although those behind him who were cheering and yelling and shouting didn't exactly look so appropiate). Whats your gripe here? Do you even have one?
What I really thought was bush league was ole I can't be bothered with fractions Trevor Denman being so intellectually weak as to have made up a script about what he was gonna say "when Bernadini won" and was stuttering like a loony tunes charcter when Invasor mulched him. As Bugs would say, what a maroon.

[quote=oracle80]Exactly! His call on Preakness day was the right way to handle it. at no point did he ever "put down" Bernardini.

Another Denman miss- (a BIG one)- he didn't mention Pine Island going down AT ALL. Not even after the race was over. In the same race, nothing about Asi Siempre running back and forth in the stretch like a drunken sailor playing pinball with her competitors!

[quote=oracle80]Durkin called the harness races at Meadowlands during the 80's for quite a while i believe.

Tom Durkin absolutely called races at the Meadowlands.

i meant to say denmans the most overrated, sorry mr durkin! lol although i still find it funny durkin called birdstone winning the belmont@toga, and still didnt like the"rehearsed" stretch call of the belmont that year