Memorizing the silks

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• Posted by Travis

Memorizing the silks worn by jockeys is critical to delivering a good race call. One of the best pieces of advice I ever received read: No Memo-No Call.

Simply put, without memorizing there is no race call. Sure announcers (myself included) have winged-it before, but the end result is always below the usual standards. Because a race lasts less than two minutes, there is no time to consult your program without missing key events in the race.

When the horses come on the track, the process is read the name, look at the silk, repeat, repeat, repeat. You the move to the next horse, read the name, look at the silk, repeat, repeat, repeat. Then you go to the next horse and do the same thing, but this time toss in the first two here or there, until you’ve covered the entire field. Some announcers do it in sets of three, I just go by general feel.

Sometimes one or two can trip you up, so to help me memorize (and to develop a cheat sheet for mid-race), I use a technique many other announcers use. The program to the right is an example.

Symbols and notations

I color the silks of every jockey onto my program. If three horses hit the far turn across the track and I can only see the green sleeves of the outside horse I will often look down to verify I’m about to call the right horse. Once in a while I’ll re-write the horses name in a phonetically-friendly way for those difficult and pesky names.

The green dollar signs indicate big longshots. When horses near the wire, I’ll often double-check to make sure I’m not announcing the wrong horse (big mistake!) and if I notice a dollar sign, I’ll check the toteboard for the latest odds and find a way to recognize the longshot winner.

The circled “F” on top of the program indicates it is a race for females so I remember to refer to them as “She’s” and not “He’s” … which I’ve done before (sorry gals, or guys).

And finally, I’ll sometimes write some notes near the horses in the margins. For example, if a horse is a known speed-ball out of the gate I’ll write a word or two to describe his tendencies should he break well and do it again.

Memorizing: Practice makes it easier

Most people seem to think the memorization is the most difficult part of announcing, which is partly true. Phone calls, unexpected visitors and other outside elements can make it difficult. But in the end it’s similar to golf or any other hobby – the more you do it, the better you become.

When I first started learning how to race call it took me the whole ten minutes to memorize a field of twelve. Now I can put a field of twelve into memory in about two minutes. As the day progresses, however, memorizing becomes more difficult. I’m sure there is a proper term, but I call it mind fatigue.

There are some other shortcuts and techniques you can use to help memorize. Dave Johnson, famous for “And down the stretch they come!”, saw the Secretariat Building of the United Nations in blue and white when announcing Secretariat.

A recent example I had was a horse with completely white silks named Ghost Gallore. During the call when I saw his all-white silks, I thought of a white ghost, which lead me to Ghost Gallore.

Race over, colors gone

This is often frustrating, but as soon as the horses pass the wire the result, the finish, the order – it’s gone. I’ve had people call the booth to ask who just ran second only to hear me respond, “I don’t know.” Once the race is over, literally strides after the wire, my mind is wiped clean for the next race. This is not by design, it’s just how it goes with me.

Mistakes happen

One of the most difficult things for me in race calling are the mistakes. I put a lot of pressure on myself to consistently do my best, to present good race calls and not mess-up. While I’ve come a long way in this area, I still struggle when I make mistakes and will beat myself up at least until the next race if not until the next day. I’ve heard lots of stories of announcers who have dents in desks, cabinets, trash cans and walls as a result of a mistake.

Trust me, no one feels worse about a race call with a mistake than the announcer. And more often than not, it all comes back to the memorization.

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