Tom Durkin

Tom Durkin (born November 30, 1950, in Chicago, Illinois) is an American sportscaster and public address announcer specializing in Thoroughbred horse racing. He was the race caller for NBC Sports from 1984 through 2010. Durkin studied drama at St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin. In 1971, he was hired as a race caller at Quarter Horse and Thoroughbred races at county fairs in Wisconsin. He did this each summer through 1975, then the following year was employed by the Daily Racing Form as a call taker responsible for documenting the comments and statistics used in the official charts of the races at Cahokia Downs and Thistledown Racecourse. He went on to work as a race caller at Florida Downs in Oldsmar, Florida, Miles Park (race track) in Louisville, Kentucky, Quad City Downs in East Moline, Illinois, Balmoral Park Racetrack in Crete, Illinois, Hialeah Park Race Track in Hialeah, Florida, Meadowlands Racetrack in East Rutherford, New Jersey, and Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach, Florida, and in 1990 was hired to call races at the New York Racing Association's Aqueduct Racetrack, Belmont Park and Saratoga Race Course. Durkin served as the Breeders Cup's chief TV voice from its inception through 2005 and was a longtime broadcaster on NBC as part of the network's sportscasting crew for horse races, providing analysis, commentary and features in addition to the descriptions of races. Durkin earned fame in this decade from calling the U.S. Triple Crown races for NBC, which took over the coverage of the events in 2001. Due to his contract with NBC, Durkin no longer called Breeders' Cup races, starting from 2006, as those races moved to ESPN.[1][2] However, he continued calling the Belmont Stakes, which air on ABC, because of his position as the track announcer at Belmont Park. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Durkin