“They were comparing the theaters that they had played on the Vaudeville circuit,” Dave Johnson recalls. “Which had the best backstage dressing rooms? Which had the best eating places, that you could walk to still with your costume and makeup on?”

These memories were being shared between Johnson's mother and Fred Astaire. Moreover, both of those who were listening on, fascinated, had remarkable stories of their own: Astaire's wife, the former jockey Robyn Smith, and Johnson himself-the man whose call, for those present at the 1973 Belmont S., will forever be synonymous with one of the greatest performances in the story of the breed.

Whether or not the world has moved on, it has certainly turned plenty since. Next Saturday, indeed, is the 50th anniversary of Secretariat's final start. And this dinner itself took place over 40 years ago, in Los Angeles, during Johnson's tenure as the caller at Santa Anita.

“Afterwards Fred sent my mother an autographed picture,” Johnson recalls. “I think things like that helped keep her alive. My dad died early, he was only 52. But my mother passed away at 93. I have a picture of her as a dancer in 1930, when she was nine or so, with the whole McLeod Troupe on the Orpheum Circuit: my grandfather, my grandmother, their oldest son who was an attorney, then a daughter who was in the chorus, and then my mother, and then baby Jackie, who was about four or five.”

It was a different world, clearly. His grandparents, indeed, were blackface comedians. But the timeless dividend, for Johnson, was to be raised on the stories of a nomadic community, full of incident and character; and, moreover, with a genetic flair of his own. Because it was performance, of course, that united all four of those gathered round the table at the Palm that night.

McLeod Troupe on the Orpheum Circuit: Johnson's mother is second from the left next to brother Jackie | Dave Johnson

“Robyn was much younger than Fred, but each was equally dependent on the other,” Johnson recalls. “Robyn's a wonder. She was a terrific rider, but a great person. Still is. And of course Fred was just a hell of a guy. Loved the game. He would get emotional about his horses. If one got claimed, just like Burt Bacharach, he would buy it back.

“At one point during that dinner Fred leaned across the table to me, just so serious, and I thought, 'Oh gosh, what's coming now?' And he said, 'Dave, I really have an important question to ask you.'” Johnson pauses and chuckles. “'Dave,' he said. 'How do you win the Pick Six?'”

Now here we are, on the opposite coast, in the Manhattan apartment that Johnson even then called home. (He bought it 51 years ago.) And we're wondering what has happened to our game since; how to retrieve the glamor of those days, when the golden age of the silver screen retained at least a copper glow; when Marje Everett ran Hollywood Park and made sure that friends like Elizabeth Taylor would show up for the inaugural Breeders' Cup.

Johnson knows that horseracing today is a very different world from when his mother taught him, aged just four or five, how to read the Racing Form: they were on the train from St. Louis to New Orleans, in the last months of the war, visiting his father's military posting.

“The arc of what has happened, in racing, seems so evident to me,” Johnson says. “I first started to go to the races as a very young guy. My family was never in the game as owners, trainers, anything. But we all loved to go to Fairmount Park, over the river from St. Louis, and it was always a wonderful holiday.

“In 2023, racing is a television production. There's no longer people at the track, or only very few. For the Derby, Oaks, the Breeders' Cup, Royal Ascot, a destination like Saratoga or Keeneland: yes. But on a day-to-day basis, year round, it's a television production. So what we have now, with some racing executives, is people making decisions about television without knowing anything about broadcasting. Of course, some are terrific. I've worked for good and bad; and it's no different on the TV side, some know their racing, some don't.”

At 82, naturally enough, Johnson doesn't find it quite so easy to get around. But he remains fully engaged, and feels due gratitude for precisely the reach of all the broadcasting platforms that are available today. Shortly before welcoming TDN, indeed, he had already been watching British racing on his phone over a morning coffee. But breadth of access does not equate to breadth of engagement.

Dick Enberg and Dave Johnson at the 1984 Breeders' Cup | NBC Sports

One of the things that sustained the sport's popular heyday, he feels, was simply the way horses were bred or trained (or both). Johnson wonders whether longer intervals between races have partly become standard because of medication levels; less speculatively, he deplores the sensitivity of trainers to their win percentages, above all now that so many potential runners are concentrated in so few hands. Johnson remembers when even someone like Woody Stephens would have no more than 40 horses.

“I knew Woody very well, and his assistants Sandy Bruno and David Donk,” Johnson recalls. “I knew that whole barn. Wonderful people. And Lucille, Woody's wife. That was before  the age of flying horses around, which was really started by Wayne Lukas. I mean, how would you begin to know 200 horses? I don't know how they do it.

“Woody was very funny. And very self-centered! 'Let's see what time it is. Oh, by the way, did I tell you that Laurel gave me this watch for winning five Selimas?' But he was a hell of a horse trainer, wasn't he? I mean, a real hardboot. Hardworking, old school. A throwback. Owners had some input, too, but the trainers ran their horses where they thought. I mean, Woody is a perfect example: winning the Met Mile with Conquistador Cielo Monday, and winning the Belmont on Saturday. I think there are some traditions which should stay, including the Triple Crown. To move the Met Mile to the Belmont undercard, that hurt me. Maybe I'm old school too.”

But maybe that's just what we're missing-the sense of participation that spreads down from the barns to the public. Horses weren't just financial or career devices, whether for breeders or trainers: they put on a show.

After all, Johnson himself would never have got started without an innate sense of theater.

“I called my first race in '65 at Cahokia Downs,” he recalls. “And it's like the script of a B movie. I was 24, working for a law firm. I'd do wills, I'd go out and take pictures of where an accident happened, I'd go and talk to a guy in prison. Anyway we had a box at the track, for the clients, and that evening I'd gone over there to wheel a horse in the double. And the announcer, Todd Creed, became ill. A stretcher went by, behind the box, and an announcement was made: 'Ladies and gentlemen, there'll be no more announcing tonight. Please watch the tote board. Thank you, and good night.'

“Now, I knew the general manager, Ann Detchemendy. She was an Ethel Merman type: a brash, wonderful lady. She'd say to me, 'Hey sweetheart, you want to split a double with me?' 'Oh yes, Miss Ann, I'd love to.' Her office was right behind, so I went in and said, 'Miss Ann, I could call the races for you. I can memorize the 10 points of the Yalta Agreement, so I can certainly manage the seven horses in this race.'”

Miss Ann picked up the phone, there was some back and forth, and she hung up. “Thanks, Dave, but the announcer's son is going to fill in.”

“That was Todd's son, Mike,” Johnson recalls. “So he's in there with the engineer, and the 'musician' who would put the stylus on the record to play the bugle. (They had to have a member of the Music Union do that for every race!) And so the three of them stood there as the horses broke out of the gate.”

“That's number five going to the lead,” says Mike.

“I don't think it's the five,” interjects the engineer.

Then a third voice: “I think it's Blue Boy.”

“And you heard the three of them argue for five furlongs,” Johnson says. “It was hilarious. Immediately after the race, Miss Ann came into the box. 'You're next!'” Johnson pauses and smiles. “I'd told my friend Tony Marino that I was going over to the track, but he was going to have some dinner first and drive over later. So he parks his car, and as he's coming through the parking lot he hears the fourth or fifth race being called. And he said, 'Geez, that sounds like Dave.'” Johnson shakes his head and chuckles. “And that was it. And here we are, almost 60 years later.”

Johnson did other stuff around the track, too: booked group parties, wrote stories, did selections for both the local newspapers. (They had to be different!) He carried on working during the day and called races at night. Meanwhile he was still reading history at Southern Illinois University, albeit graduation had to be squeezed in between the fourth and fifth races one night. “And the people, I loved the people,” he stresses. “That's what is so wonderful about working at the track. They're like family. Because you spend more time with them than you do at home.”

Calling a race just came naturally: that performance gene coming through. Having provided cover on other, less extempore occasions, Johnson took over at Cahokia and Fairmount when Creed went to Ak-Sar-Ben. Then, in 1970, he got the NYRA gig on the retirement of Fred Capossela. Secretariat was foaled that year, and so the wheel of destiny turned.

Pete Axthelm, Dick Enberg and Dave Johnson in 1984   | NBC Sports

With time, Johnson's trademark call (“And down the stretch they come…”) became literally that: he was able to charge its unauthorized use to charity. But however entertaining his style, he always felt that his first priority was to inform.

“Say what you see,” he says. “That was my only job. All the extraneous B.S. of the announcer coming on, and telling who they like, that's somebody else's job.”

That said, even the informing was constrained in the old days. “At the track, you had to shut the microphone off at the 16th pole,” he recalls. “That was because of a federal law called the Wire Act. They didn't want the result to get outside the confines of the racetrack, for fear that illegal bookmakers would churn the money. Prior to the first race, the string of payphones at Belmont Park would be locked up-and they'd only unlocked after the ninth.”

There was one time, admittedly, when Johnson finished the call too early even for the strictures of the Wire Act-in a race at Cahokia that he called as a sprint when it was really a route. (“I saw these jocks with the brakes on,” he recalls. “And I thought, 'Oh my God, it's a fixed race!' They went around the clubhouse turn, I hung up the microphone off, and the engineer said to me, 'Dave, they go around again!'”)

Not all change is for the worse, plainly.

“No, that's true,” Johnson acknowledges. “One time Angel Cordero was going for his fourth win of the day. And early in the stretch I said, 'And Cordero moves to the front.' And then at the 16th pole I said who was in front, who was second, shut it off. [Next day] my boss Pat Lynch called me in and said, 'I got a memorandum. From a board member. “Please inform Mr. Johnson, it's horse racing-not jockey racing!” The mentality… I mean, see how much it's changed?

“But if you listen to Fred Capossela-a  wonderful man, just a great human being-his calls were never jockey-, or trainer-related. But it was all very good. And that's our job: to identify, and give the margins, and who's moving. And from the top of the stretch, maybe only concentrate on the horses in contention.”

One way or another, however, Johnson showed that inherited flair for performance. And, in time, that actually extended as far

as playing roles on stage and screen.

Back in St. Louis, for instance, he performed in musicals like My Fair Lady, Can-Can and Unsinkable Molly Brown in front of 12,000 at the outdoor theater in Forest Park. Above all, however, Johnson has adapted his racetrack nose for a wager to investment in Broadway productions.

“That also came from a St. Louis connection,” he says. “Rocco Landesman, who I knew from the racetrack 20, 25 years ago. Owned six theaters here in New York, called the Jujamcyn Theaters. We had always talked about The Producers, which was one of my favorite films, with Zero Mostel. So when he said there was a chance he might do it as a stage play, I said, 'Count me in.'”

Johnson had already backed a theatrical winner in London, a city he would get to know very well through attending 24 consecutive Royal Ascots. In 1983 he saw the West End debut of Michael Frayn's Noises Off, and virtually camped on the producers' doorstep.

“I begged them to take my money!” he says. “And it was a big success, mainly because they sold the film rights for $5 million. But I didn't invest in another show until The Producers, nearly 20 years later. Rocco came up to me at the memorial service for David Merrick and said, 'I think we've got Matthew Broderick.' And that was it. Biggest bet I ever made. But it paid very well.”

The show opened at the St. James Theater on 19 April 2001, and ran for 2,502 performances, harvesting a record 12 Tony Awards. And Johnson remains immersed in that cosmopolitan community, still telephoning and corresponding with folks from behind and in front of the footlights. Asked what draws him to their world, his answer is succinct and emphatic.

“Talent, and honesty,” Johnson declares. “I have a lot of friends whose talent I really admire. They give it all. But it's not just the performing, it's everything that goes into making any of these things: a television show, a commercial, a stage show, a movie. Because, really, can't you see through people that are phony? I can, at least I think I can. So it's not just talent, it's also the honesty: people, like Rocco, who always do the right thing. I don't want anything to do with anybody who isn't above board, who's shady, who cuts corners.”

But come on, Dave, how does that account for where you spent the rest of your time? You must have seen a few phonies on the racetrack.

“Oh, yeah!” he says with a chuckle. “And in the management of racetracks, too.”

This, in fact, is one of his pet vexations: track executives who didn't come up through the game; people who would never go to the races on their day off. But the beauty of Johnson's own story is the way he has straddled the margins between these two cosmopolitan, theatrical worlds: the stage and the Turf.

“There's only one job at the racetrack that is a performer,” he reflects. “As announcers, we are performers. If you're doing it on television, you're not doing it for the crowd. Yeah. Isn't that funny? Only one job.

“And it's a once-in-a-lifetime thing. In anything, like a movie, that's going to be on videotape or film, you can change it. You can do take two, whatever. At the racetrack, you get one shot, and it'll never be the same. Ever. Run the same horses, your call is never going to be the same.”

What luck, then, that he took his cue that night back in 1965: an unscheduled audition for the rest of his life.

“There's a little article in The New York Times called Tiny Love Stories,” Johnson says. “It has to be 100 words or less. And so many times it's about people who met their mate in a cab, or on a corner, or in a rainstorm. I love those stories. It's the same kind of thing. What if I hadn't gone to the track that evening? Who knows? How lucky was I? And then I get to see Secretariat, Ruffian, Affirmed. I really have been lucky. I have no regrets. I've had a great career, and a wonderful life. I love the line in the movie Braveheart, where Mel Gibson says: 'Every man dies. But not every man lives.' And boy, have I lived.”

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Johnson is seeking compensatory and exemplary damages as well as equitable relief. The suit was filed in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of New York.

The allegations revolve around a show that aired on Nov. 9, 2022, which was the eighth episode of Season Five of 'The Crown'. The episode includes the storyline of how and when Queen Elizabeth II became interested in horse racing. On the show, she is shown watching races broadcast on satellite television. According to the lawsuit, the broadcast of the races includes Johnson's voice and his call of the 1995 GI Travers S. as well as other examples where Johnson's voice is used.

“Dave Johnson's actual voice, which is synonymous with horse racing in the United States at that period of time, is being used and is clearly audible and immediately recognizable,” the suit charges.

“Mr. Johnson is very proud of his body of work as the voice of American horse racing and as such has an interest in the unauthorized use of same without his permission,” said Johnson's lawyer, Drew Mollica. “His historic call of the 1995 Travers played an important role in Episode 8 of 'The Crown' during Season 5 and was used without his permission and he seeks compensation. The complaint speaks for itself.”

Johnson has been careful to protect his brand and has sued others who have used his catchphrase “And Down the Stretch They Come,” which he has trademarked, without his authorization. In all cases, whenever Johnson has prevailed in a lawsuit he has donated his compensation to a racing related charity. Beneficiaries of Johnson's donations have included New York's Backstretch Employee Service Team, Churchill Downs' Backside Learning Center and various scholarships including the University of Arizona's Racetrack Industry Program and Southern Illinois University, as well as donations he has made to benefit disabled jockeys.

According to Netflix's own numbers. 'The Crown's' “fifth season was viewed for 107.39 million hours following its premier” and Episode Eight had a production cost of approximately $13 million. According to the complaint, in 2022 Netflix Entities garnered a total revenue from its video streaming platform that amounted to approximately $31.6 billion and that “a substantial portion of that revenue is attributable to the sale, rental, and streaming success of 'The Crown', including Season Five, Episode Eight.”

“As a proximate result of All Defendants acts and/or omissions, All Defendants, individually, collectively and acting on concert, have invaded Dave Johnson's statutory right to privacy, misappropriated his persona and voice, and have profited at Dave Johnson's expense…” the lawsuit charges.

Johnson called the GI Kentucky Derby for ABC Sports from 1978 to 1980 and from 1987 to 2000. He called the GI Preakness S. and the GI Belmont S. from 1987 to 2000. He also served as the head announcer at, among others, the NYRA tracks, the Meadowlands, Santa Anita Park and Hialeah Park. He is currently the co-host of the “Down the Stretch” show on Sirius XM radio.

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Tuesday night, I attended the opening night of his son, Gabe's, one-man show, Solo, in New York City's East Village and found that the sense of humor trait has undoubtedly been passed on from father to son.

Solo is a one-hour-and-20-minute show which counts several racing luminaries among its executive producers, including Terry Finley, Dave Johnson, Tommy and Karen Bellhouse, Len Green, and Michael Katzer. More a storytelling session than stand-up comedy, it is at times thoughtful, poignant, honest, and very, very funny.

He calls it “A Show About Friendship,” and over the eighty minutes, Mollica explores the differences between friendship among men and those among women. After he spends a day playing video games with his friend Nick, he goes to his parents' house and his mother, Joy, says she has just seen on Facebook that Nick's sister has just had a baby. “How does Nick feel about being an uncle?” she asks him.

“How does Nick feel?” Mollica replies. “I've known Nick my whole life and I don't know how he feels about anything.”

Men, he muses, hang out together with another activity as the focus-sports, video games, or anything else to watch-while women hang out to talk to and focus on one another.

It's one of many observations that had the audience not just laughing out loud, but nodding their heads in recognition.

But the central story of the show revolves around a friend breakup, not with one of his `bros' as he calls his video-game-playing friends, but with someone he considered his best friend, Tim. This story, and Mollica's inability to come to terms with what Tim has done, how it was handled, and to resolve what has happened to the friendship, is not only the central heart of the show, but a story which will resound with anyone who has been through a similar experience.

I may have embarrassed myself laughing in the intimate space of the theater when Mollica explains to his childhood friends just what it is that a jockey agent does, asking them, “You mean your father doesn't have a little man?”

The New York Times has called the show, “Very funny, sweet not sappy, intricate, Birbiglian storytelling,” and it was featured last month on an episode of This American Life. It has also had a run in Edinburgh, Scotland.

The show runs Tuesdays through Sundays through October 28 at the Connelly Theater, 220 E. 4^th Street, in New York (click here for tickets) and then hits the road, heading to Chicago, Los Angeles, and Boston, among other stops. Click here for the schedule, tickets and more information. You won't regret the investment of time and you'll leave the theater feeling decidedly better about life.

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A native of North Carolina, Cantey started her career with race horses in New York after graduating from George Washington University in 1968. She worked with trainers Elliot Burch, Frank Whiteley, Jr., David Whiteley, and Sidney Watters, as well as Joe Cantey after their 1969 marriage.

She was persuaded by Frank Wright and Dave Johnson, co-hosts of the WOR-TV (New York) weekly racing show, to join them in 1975. Two years later, she made her network debut on CBS for the Travers S., alongside Wright and Jack Whitaker. During nine years with CBS, she originated interviews from horseback.

When ABC was contracted for Triple Crown coverage in 1986, Cantey was part of the talent team that included Jim McKay, Al Michaels, Whitaker, and Johnson. In 2001, the contract went to NBC, where she worked with Tom Hammond and others for the Triple Crown, as well as the Breeders' Cup World Championships.

“I am honored, and beyond humbled, to receive the Jane Goldstein Leadership Award,” Cantey said. “To be recognized by Jane and the Horse Racing Women's Summit is a stunning surprise, and I am so grateful to be remembered by this important collective force committed to advancing all facets of our mutual lifelong passion, Thoroughbred racing.

The award is named for ground-breaking turf publicist Jane Goldstein, who was recognized for the inaugural presentation last year.

Tickets to HRWS 2023 are still available and can be purchased online. Visit www.womeninracingsummit.com for more information.

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He recalled that Secretariat came around at the perfect time, that the country was looking for a hero and a heroic story after the struggles of the late sixties and early seventies.

“There was Watergate and Vietnam, and this was before people scratched off lottery tickets and before sports books and casinos,” he said. “Racing was the great place to go and make a legal bet. And then along comes this great horse with a great crew. You had Lucien Laurin training and Ronnie Turcotte riding and Mrs. Tweedy was a great cheerleader. She just she captured the audience. When you'd see her on television rooting for a horse, you wanted her to win. So it was all of those things that came together with this magnificent animal. Secretariat just came at the right time and with the right people and at a time where the sport didn't have the problems it has now. People loved Secretariat and loved the story, and it was a hell of a story.”

In that era, announcers were not allowed to call the finish of a race because that was seen as a violation of the Wire Act of 1938, which was meant to discourage bookmaking. But he did his best to let his audience know that something special was taking place.

“I called Secretariat in front by 25 lengths at the sixteenth-pole,” he said. “I had never called a horse in a race other than a steeplechase race in front by that much. So I called him in front by 25 lengths at the sixteenth pole and then I shut the mic off at the 70-yard mark saying Secretariat wins the Triple Crown or something like that. I don't think NYRA has the call. But that's what I remember, how gigantic the margin of victory was. It seems like yesterday. It doesn't seem like 50 years ago.”

Johnson has called hundreds of major races, including a slew of Triple Crown events while working for ABC. But nothing, he said, will ever top the 1973 Belmont.

“It was the greatest spectacle in my lifetime of watching horse races,” Johnson said. “If you brought any horse in the world to the Belmont that afternoon at a mile-and-a-half, Secretariat would have beat them. It was it was just spectacular. It was the greatest moment for me in horse racing. I don't think you'll ever match it.”

Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by Coolmore,https://lanesend.com/  the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association, Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders,  1/st Racing, WinStar Farm, XBTV, Lane's End and https://www.threechimneys.com/ West Point Thoroughbreds, the team of Bill Finley, Zoe Cadman and Randy Moss discussed the news surrounding the National Thoroughbred League, the new racing initiative that hopes to bring the team aspect that is at the core of other sports to racing. There was some skepticism that it will succeed and Moss pointed out just how expensive it will be purchase the 36 horses that will be needed to form the racing teams. But there was agreement that the league deserves a chance and they applauded its founders for trying something new and different that could bring new fans to the sport. The rash of fatalities at Churchill Downs took up much of the podcast. As is the case with just about everyone in the industry, the team doesn't see there being any magic bullets but was in agreement that the situation is a terrible problem for a sport holding on dearly to its social license to operate. And how will Rich Strike (Keen Ice) do now that he has been turned over to Bill Mott? The consensus was that Mott will have his work cut out for him but that if anybody can get last year's GI Kentucky Derby winner back to top form it is his new trainer.

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His death was first reported by the Post, for whom he covered 32 Kentucky Derbies. A native of Australia, Kerrision came to the Post in 1977 and was a regular on the racing beat through the 1985 season. He then moved over to the news side and worked as a columnist up until 2013. The news department would lend Kerrision to sports after his career change and he continued to cover the major races like the Triple Crown events and the Breeders' Cup up until his retirement.

Kerrison was a product of a different time, when the New York tabloids kept close tabs on racing and were unapologetic when it came to shining a light on the good, the bad and, when it was called for, the ugly. Kerrison's reporting skills helped land him the exclusive on one of the biggest scandals ever at the New York tracks. Kerrison uncovered the 1977 betting coup that involved the switching of the identities of the horses Lebon and Cinzano. Cinzano, a champion in Uruguay, raced under the name of Lebon, a non-descript horse who also came out of South America. Running under the name of Lebon, Cinzano won a race at Belmont at odds of 57-1. For his work Kerrison was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

With his reporting, Kerrison also played a key role in uncovering the scandal that led to charges being brought against Con Errico, Anthony Ciulla and more than 20 others.
According to the Post, Kerrison also covered the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., the 1969 moon landing and the 1972 Munich Olympics terrorist attack before moving to the U.S.
“Horse racing needs more journalists like Ray Kerrison,” former NYRA announcer Dave Johnson said. “He was fearless and he took on all subjects, no matter if it might cost his paper advertising dollars. He was an invaluable asset to the game. It's a shame we don't have people like that in racing anymore.”

Kerrison was born in in Cobdogla, Australia. He came to New York in 1963 to work for News Limited. In 1970, he went to work for fellow Australian Rupert Murdoch at the National Star and then joined the Post, also owned by Murdoch.

“It was never about him,” said his son, Patrick. “He was extraordinarily humble. He was very protective of the $2 bettor. When he came on the racing season, Jan. 1, 1977, the other turf writers did not like him and neither did racing personnel, trainers, jockeys. That's because it was very insular and the turf writers acted more like publicity agents as opposed to investigative journalists. What my dad did upset a lot of people. He didn't care. He just wanted to protect the bettors and he wanted everything to be on a level playing field. That's how he was with everything in his life.”

“All I can tell you is Ray Kerrison was just a wonderful human being,” Greg Gallo, a former Post sports editor, told the Post.”He was a terrific journalist, columnist, a tenacious reporter who went after stories full tilt. But he was so gracious in the way he did his business. I used to refer to him as the Fred Astaire of Thoroughbred racing because he was the best. He was the classiest guy who ever worked that beat. No one was better as a journalist. … We really have lost a special person here.”

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Cassidy, who later served as a patrol and placing judge in New York, was a member of NYRA's elite fraternity of track announcers. Serving as backup announcer during much of the 1970s to Dave Johnson and Chic Anderson, Cassidy took over as NYRA's lead announcer after Anderson's death in 1979.

In addition to his duties on the NYRA circuit, Cassidy called races throughout the 1980s on television for CBS, ABC, NBC and ESPN. He was succeeded at NYRA by Tom Durkin in 1990.

“Marshall Cassidy was incredibly skilled at his craft and a true ambassador for thoroughbred racing in New York,” said NYRA President and CEO Dave O'Rourke. “Marshall was a friend to so many, especially in Saratoga, where he could so often be found mixing it up in the press box or talking to fans in the backyard. We mourn his loss and offer our condolences to his friends, family and colleagues past and present.”

Durkin praised Cassidy's unique delivery and accuracy which he said rivaled that of Fred Capossela, NYRA's race caller from 1934 to 1971.

“Marshall had a voice that belonged in the Hall of Fame. He had a resonant baritone and his timbre was perfect,” said Durkin, who was NYRA race caller from 1990 to 2014. “In terms of New York announcers – and this is the highest praise – he was on an even par with Fred Capossela. The most important thing for a racetrack announcer to be is accurate. And for that, Marshall was peerless.”

John Imbriale, NYRA's current race caller, also remembered Cassidy for his accuracy and his distinctive style.

“Nobody was more accurate than Marshall,” said Imbriale. “His call of Easy Goer's Belmont Stakes win will be remembered forever.”

Cassidy also mentored Imbriale in the 1980s at Aqueduct, often critiquing and analyzing his practice calls and teaching him the ropes of a profession that few ever master.

“He was very supportive and really took the time to help me,” Imbriale said of Cassidy. His help was extremely important.”

Cassidy was a member of a distinguished multi-generational family of racing officials in New York. His maternal grandfather, Marshall Whiting Cassidy, was a race starter and later a steward, who eventually became racing director for NYRA's predecessor agencies, and later the executive director of The Jockey Club. Cassidy's maternal great-grandfather, Marshall (Mars) Cassidy, was also a fixture in New York racing as a race starter, the first to use a barrier to start a race, and immortalized in coverage by Damon Runyon.

George Cassidy, Cassidy's grand-uncle, was also a race starter, serving for upwards of 50 years, mostly at NYRA tracks, before he retired in 1980.

The post Marshall Cassidy, 75, Former NYRA Track Announcer, Passes appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Originally over these five days, we presented `The Down the Stretch’ awards, but the homestretch at Ascot is a gradual uphill tussle. I think it is much harder for a thoroughbred to pull, to dig down deep on the incline in the final three furlongs. Very trying and tiring. Thus, the Up The Stretch Awards.

Here are the 2020 STRECHIE winners.

The winner of the QUICK TURNAROUND AWARD is also the hero and the goat this week.  We in the colonies don’t see thoroughbreds, especially at this high level, return to the racing wars so soon after a race.  Hey Jonesy (Ire) (Excelebration) {Ire})

finished 22nd in a field of 23 on Tuesday at 33-1 in The Buckingham Handicap. So when you saw this longshot roll right back with only four days rest, and leave the starting gate at only 17-1 on Saturday in the seven-furlong Wokingham S., wouldn’t you scratch your head and wonder where the money was coming from? Even more baffling is the fact that this gelding beat 21 others to win by a nose!  Well, there you have the goat on Tuesday, becoming the hero on Saturday. His victory was the low point in the week for me.

The very BEST PERFORMANCE BY A HORSE was Stradivarius (Ire) (Sea the Stars {Ire}, a sensational stayer, bred and owned by Bjorn Nielsen. The now 6 year-old won the G1 Gold Cup for a remarkable third year in a row. Like Forego and Kelso, Stradivarius seems to be getting better as he ages. His margin of victory was 10 geared-down lengths. And on Thursday, Frankie Dettori riding for trainer John Gosden on the gallant now-6 year-old completed this very difficult hat-trick. Leading the stretch procession was simply breathtaking.

The HIGHWAY ROBBERY STRETCHIE goes to Pinatubo (Ire) (Shamardal) in the G1 St. James’s Palace S. Pinatubo had won six out of six as a two-year old, and was the heavy heavy favorite on Saturday. He finished second, and (in U.S. dollars) paid $2.02 for a $2 tote bet in England.

BEST SINGLE RIDE AWARD goes to Ryan Moore, who I think may have been the only rider who could have coaxed, muscled, bullied and pushed Circus Maximus Ire (Galileo {Ire}) to a nose tally in the G1 Queen Anne S. I should also salute the gutsy and tough winner, trained by Aidan O’Brien.

TOP TRAINER UP THE STRETCH AWARD goes to the classiest of gentleman, John Gosden. He gave himself a good excuse for Stradivarius before the race, if he had lost. John was not comfortable with the soft designation of the course. How wasted his words. It looks like Stradivarius could run on mushy porridge and still win.

THE INVADER AWARD goes to Wesley Ward. A super professional outstanding trainer, who is also a great ambassador for America at the highest level of European thoroughbred competition. Wesley finally got his 11th Royal Ascot victor on Friday with Campanelle (Ire) (Kodiac {GB}). He is the most famous American trainer at Ascot because of his extraordinary groundbreaking efforts at the Royal meeting. And the locals love him.

THE RITZ UP THE STRETCH AWARD is not now called the Leading Jockey of the Royal meeting. I’m going back to the previous moniker. Give THE RITZ AWARD to Frankie Dettori, showman, exuberant, crowd loving Italian, who is also, at age 49, one of the best jockeys in the world. Like Kelso, Forego and Stradivarius, Frankie gets better and smarter as the years pile up.  When I was working at Santa Anita, many journalists and broadcasters said Bill Shoemaker should retire. Soon after that, “Shoe” rode the winner of the Kentucky Derby. Don’t retire Frankie.

LUNCH OF THE WEEK award this year will go vacant. Scribes like me enjoyed the extravagant buffet spreads in the Ascot Press Box. But this year those great repasts were non existent. Somehow the ballpark franks I have been having for lunch, even with Skyline chili,  just doesn’t get the same dining star rating from Bobby Flay.  Maybe next year?

THE BACHELOR AWARD goes to Tom Marquand, who won his first Royal Ascot race 24 hours after his girlfriend Hollie Doyle won her initial Royal tally. Tom took the Queen Alexandra S. on Who Dares Wins (Ire) (Jeremy).

THE JOHN HENRY AWARD (for old timers) goes to a repeat winner. The 94 year-old owner of Tactical (GB) (Toronado {Ire}), hero of The Windsor Castle S. Every year, for the past 86 years, she has attended all days of the Royal Meeting. If you don’t think being a fan of this beautiful and exciting sport keeps you young, check out how racing has kept owner, breeder, and fan still on top of her game.  She is also the Queen of England, Elizabeth II. Hope to see you next June.

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And my new hero is Ian Bartlett. Never met the chap, but he

is a well traveled race commentator for more than 31 years, with stints in his native England for the BBC, and for

races in Ireland, France and Dubai. And now he is the voice of Royal Ascot.

I urge you to listen to his outstanding race calls at The Royal meeting, which is just a five-day stand through this Saturday. He is announcing the races just for you, just for the television audience at home.

It is a far different call from what you hear whilst watching at the track, where you have your binoculars trained on the field, or listening to the radio.

What is so terrific about Ian’s descriptions is that he identifies in his call the horses, as many as 30 in some races, by the obvious colors of the silks the rider is wearing. In addition to the placement of the runners, the margins between horses, their on-course positions inside, outside or between rivals, and sometimes even their rank in the betting ring from big gamble favorites to extreme longshots. For those of us at home, he tells us exactly where the steed or steeds we are rooting for actually are as the event unfolds.

No need for the ‘chicklets’ at the bottom of the screen that we get used to from some tracks.

On Day 2 of the Royal Meeting, Bartlett described how the lead changed among three runners in the final furlong of The Hampton Court S. Berlin Tango (GB) (Dansili {GB}) tussled with First Receiver (GB) (New Approach {Ire}) and looked like a winner. But First Receiver inched forward to get his head in front just as Russian Emperor (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) swooped down at the wire to win. It was such a great timing job, that I believe if Ryan Moore would have ridden either of the other two horses in that final eighth of a mile, he would have won, no matter which of the three he rode. That was his 60th winner at Royal Ascot, a testament to his great ability to know where that finish line is, and how much horse he has left.

In The Windsor Castle S. I think Mr. Bartlett had to zero in on Tactical (GB) (Toronado {Ire}) because he was the sentimental favorite of the entire day, owned by the 94-year-old monarch of the United Kingdom, Queen Elizabeth II. A very popular victor.

In the feature, the G1 Prince of Wales’s S., I know many family members were watching, and not just from their homes. James Doyle won the race on Lord North (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}). His sister, Sophie, is riding now in Kentucky. This family affair also includes Jacqueline Doyle, former show jumper, trainer par excellence and the mum of these two current excellent riders.

And a word about the time between races. Here we often hear trainers complain about running their horses with only weeks between engagements. May I point out that Russian Emperor (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) competed only eight days ago in a hundred grander Derby Trial at Leopardstown in Ireland.

And finally a personal memory. The most memorable race I ever saw was Secretariat (Bold Ruler) winning the 1973 GI Belmont S. After that, a distant number two is Dubai Millennium (Seeking The Gold) with Jerry Bailey aboard winning the 2000 edition of the Prince of Wales’s.

A lot to look forward to for the rest of the week, and a few more memories to be made for sure.

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Forget the long airline flight to London. Forget the face mask and gloves.

It’s a new world in 2020 for those who love top-quality horse racing and believe that “mass follows class” on both sides of the Atlantic.

Now in the light of COVID-19, the unique Royal Ascot meet will take place on the same heath behind closed doors for the first time since 1711, when Queen Anne decreed that the beautiful flatland just a mile or so from Windsor castle would be the site of top quality horse racing.

For most of the past 26 years, I would have been trying on the pants, vest and tail coat that was required in the Ascot Royal enclosure. It seemed like every June the vest needed a bit more give and the pants needed every inch of the extra waistband. This year I can wear shorts and a tee shirt at home.

Instead of the relaxing one hour clickity-clack journey on the southwest rail line from Waterloo to the Sunningdale station,

now it is just steps from my home office to my television room, where this week both sets will be tuned to the Thoroughbred sport, and a computer to my wagering racing website.

This year is a great opportunity not just for sports fans, but for everyone to join the worldwide crowd for a totally different experience through 2020 media. Throughout these five days, starting Tuesday, one can enjoy not just the great racing. It is quite a menu, beginning in the mornings with a jockey fitness session providing an eye-opening insight into the sorts of fitness regimes professional jockeys must maintain. The little guys have to be strong and agile.

For more than three centuries, at 2 o’clock sharp London time, the Golden Gates would swing open and a procession of horse- drawn Landau carriages would trot up the stretch carrying members of the Royal family and racing personalities, as the band played the national anthem. This year no processions, but we can watch great historic videos of past Royal processions, treating us to scenes of Queen Elizabeth, as a young monarch in the 1950’s. She is now 94 years old and will be watching on the telly, as we will be.

Image galleries showcasing fashion and sport photography from the past, along with a cooking show of Royal Ascot specialties by Michelin Star chefs. There will also be a competition, reminding me of the Bobby Flay throw-downs. This year it’s the ‘Coronation Chicken Stakes.’

I don’t have children, but Ascot is making an activity pack for kids, which includes a design-your-own jockey silks guide. Not a bad idea to get the kids involved in racing very early.

Last year I remember a press release said that 80,000 cups of tea, in addition to a quarter million tea cakes and scones were served. This week instead of tea and scones, the Ascot kitchen will serve up the recipe to those watching on how to create your own VIP tea.

I’m not the target market they want for the sale of Ascot Jockey teddy bears. And I never did stay for the singalong  around the Bandstand, I wanted to get back to the city for a

cocktail hour. But the songbook is available on the Ascot website for the stay-at-home singers. Also on the website each day will be a different Ascot Signature Serve cocktail recipe, including the Royal Ascot Blush and Monkey Went To Ascot.  I’ll stick to a Manhattan whilst overseas.

As frivolous as some of these promotions might seem, you must salute them for the creative initiative. Our industry today

should be taking the advantage of the immediate lack of live major sporting events, instead they seem to keep shooting themselves in the foot. I’m sick of petty feuds spoiling the

game for us players. And American racing should notice or maybe even copy some of their promotional ideas.

As for our American heroes, the Cambridge-born Graham Motion (yes, you can still detect the accent) is sending Sharing (Speightstown), winner of the GI Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf, for the G1 Coronation S. on Friday. I like her chances off the excellent prep race she won at Churchill Downs and the jockey. Superstar Oisin Murphy has won races all over the globe and recently guided Kameko (Kitten’s Joy) to a resounding success in the G1 QIPCO 2000 Guineas at Newmarket.

Washington-born Wesley Ward has the best record of any non-English trainer, with 11 Royal winners. Hard to believe that this 52-year-old was the Eclipse Award-winning apprentice rider in 1984. He will send out six runners from his stable this week and knows his way to the winners enclosure anywhere in the world. For the first year he is represented at this meet, he will be watching from Florida, with top hat and tails ready for next June.

If you have a bucket list, a trip to the Royal meeting at one of the greatest race courses in the world should be on it. This year get a flavor of what it is like watching this magnificent show on television, like me, Wesley, Graham and the Queen of England.

Editor’s note: Dave Johnson is a racecaller and sportscaster (famous for his signature `And down the stretch they come!’) whose streak of 25 consecutive Royal Ascot meetings was ended by the Coronavirus pandemic this year. His annual Letters from Ascot will be written this year from his home in New York City.

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