Tom Durkin's call.

[VOL JACK]

Originally Posted by gales0678

time to bring back Dave Johnson

this call had to be the worst in derby history, he never saw the horse , he sohuld have had a sign in his box - remember if see horse on rail , think borel

Time to let Mark Johnson call the race to all....Great call on his part.

[miraja2]

Originally Posted by VOL JACK

Time to let Mark Johnson call the race to all....Great call on his part.

That's the call we got at Arlington, and though it was difficult for me to hear him with a group of drunken frat boys next to me screaming, "WHERE THE HELL IS CHOCOLATE CANDY?!?!?!" over and over, I thought it sounded like a pretty good call from him.

[VOL JACK]

Originally Posted by miraja2

That's the call we got at Arlington, and though it was difficult for me to hear him with drunken frat boys around me screaming, "WHERE THE HELL IS CHOCOLATE CANDY?!?!?!" over and over, I thought it sounded like a pretty good call from him.

Kentucky Downs was actually alot worse for annoying patrons on Oaks Day. I think it was Grandma's day out and since the Bingo hall across the street burned they ended up at KD.

There were 2.5 dollars of Trifecta tickets at KD cashed in the derby.. A mom and Daughter had a buck each, because they liked the name.

[Travis Stone]

Calling at Churchill is not easy... they run straight at you, literally. Its the horses shoulders and the jockey's sleeves for much of the stretch.

The crazy part about this Derby... there were three horses with the same silks (Winstar) and two others with the same silk (Bernie/Atomic).

[ninetoone]

It's a Borel thing. Denman missed him even worse in the BC Juvenile...

[philcski]

Originally Posted by Travis Stone

Calling at Churchill is not easy... they run straight at you, literally. Its the horses shoulders and the jockey's sleeves for much of the stretch.

The crazy part about this Derby... there were three horses with the same silks (Winstar) and two others with the same silk (Bernie/Atomic).

and another two with the same silks and different caps (Godolphin.) And mud covering everything, and on top of it, the most impossible horse in the race with the least distinguishiable silks.

[sumitas]

hey, he's a small horse . hard to see . give tom a break .

Originally Posted by Travis Stone

Calling at Churchill is not easy... they run straight at you, literally. Its the horses shoulders and the jockey's sleeves for much of the stretch.

The crazy part about this Derby... there were three horses with the same silks (Winstar) and two others with the same silk (Bernie/Atomic).

All three Winstar horses had white caps. I'd have gone ballistic with the colors man!!

[ateamstupid]

To be fair, there's no way in hell any of you figured Mine That Bird would be exploding away from the pack. Durkin was probably too shocked to spit it out.

[The Indomitable DrugS]

Yeah - imagine the embarassment of calling that horse en route to a runaway win when it turns out it was some remotely logical horse that wasn't out of contact with the rest of the field early on.

The candance of his call wasn't Durkin-esque smooth when that huge inside move was made to the lead ... I think he saw it - but either couldn't believe what he was seeing enough to say MTB's name or perhaps he simply didn't know which horse it was making the move.

[DaTruth]

Originally Posted by v j stauffer

All three Winstar horses had white caps. I'd have gone ballistic with the colors man!!

Why does Zayat insist on putting the "Z" on the front of the jockey's cap? It isn't like you can't already pick out his silks 1,500 feet away without binoculars. Pilots landing at Bluegrass airport have been known to remark, "Hey, I see that Zayat has a horse running."

[Travis Stone]

Originally Posted by v j stauffer

All three Winstar horses had white caps. I'd have gone ballistic with the colors man!!

This is so true. When race calling with the same silks, at least in my opinion, you can verify the horse by other markings, jockey style or in the worst case, by its saddle cloth. In the Derby, however, with three horses of the same silk and virtually no chance of seeing a saddle cloth... yikes. You're in the "look through the rest of the field for the other two first" territory. Brutal.

[PatCummings]

Originally Posted by Travis Stone

This is so true. When race calling with the same silks, at least in my opinion, you can verify the horse by other markings, jockey style or in the worst case, by its saddle cloth. In the Derby, however, with three horses of the same silk and virtually no chance of seeing a saddle cloth... yikes. You're in the "look through the rest of the field for the other two first" territory. Brutal.

The only thing I noticed...

Mr Hot Stuff had a shadowroll, Advice had a white bridle with no shadowroll or blinkers, Hold Me Back had a dark bridle that was indistinguishable. Would have been the only way to tell them apart...well, except for the fact that you would have known if one of them was making an absurdly premature move, it had to be Hold Me Back because Desormeaux was riding.

[_ed_]

Originally Posted by VOL JACK

Time to let Mark Johnson call the race to all....Great call on his part.

Yeah, very good call I thought. His only mistake was that went back to the English (and correct ) way of pronouncing Derby near the end of the race, but that's forgivable.

[Merlinsky]

Originally Posted by _ed_

Yeah, very good call I thought. His only mistake was that went back to the English (and correct ) way of pronouncing Derby near the end of the race, but that's forgivable.

How is it correct to pronounce Derby like "Darby"? If we're messing around with things like swapping vowel sounds, I'll just start pronouncing IEAH as "thrrp."

[_ed_]

Do you pronounce everything exactly how it's spelt?

I just think it's correct because that's how the race it's named after is pronounced. Anyway, it was just a random comment and a spectacularly unsuccessful attempt at humour, at about the quality level you can expect from me when I'm bored at work.

[Scurlogue Champ]

Originally Posted by Merlinsky

How is it correct to pronounce Derby like "Darby"? If we're messing around with things like swapping vowel sounds, I'll just start pronouncing IEAH as "thrrp."

The same way it is correct to pronounce Paris (pah-ree)

I'm as American as anyone, but we do say it wrong.

I like hearing guys at the OTB in Kentucky pronouncing that Juddmonte horse Champs Elysees as if they never had a history class.

[parsixfarms]

Originally Posted by Merlinsky

How is it correct to pronounce Derby like "Darby"?

Or Versailles as "Ver-sales," as they do in Kentucky?

[Linny]

The race was named after the "Derby Stakes" in England and THAT race is pronounced dArby after Lord Derby, pronounced Darby. Ask Lord Derby about the pronunciation. It's been going on for centuries.
Every other racing nation that runs races called "Derbies" uses the British pronunciation.

I get a kick out of "Champs El-EE-es" as if the horse were from Ver-Sales KY!

[SlewsMyHero]

I love Durkin, but his call was reminiscent of Denman's call or miscall of Street Sense in the BC Juvenile. In all fairness, Mark Johnson did not catch the big move early either. He did call the winner sooner than Durkin did, but it wasn't like he saw him in early stretch. Johnson made the call just as MTB was taking the lead. I think announcers just get used to horses rallying on the outside and sometimes just don't see the ones that sneak up on the rail. All in all, I thought Mark Johnson's call was clearly superior to Durkin's.