Like tens of thousands of racing fans in the Northeast, I became addicted to Harvey Pack when he began broadcasting his “Pack at the Track” radio program during the 1970s. Anyone who could get away with the kind of the totally 'Noo Yawk' attitude he put forth in a sport that always prided itself on being serious about its “Sport of Kings” sobriquet had to be someone who could probably get away with anything–and for the most part, that's what Harvey Pack did.
When I first met him in the mid-1980s, it was as part of a project a friend had developed with NBC to explore the inside of horse racing. The way he greeted us put into perspective what he always was known to do: he could throw the bull with the best, but he never gave you bull. If he liked you from the start, you were welcomed into his lair; if he didn't, you did not get past the cave entrance.
I was lucky that he smiled on me even if that TV project was dead on arrival.
His lair was on the second floor of Aqueduct, in the basement at Belmont and trackside at Saratoga, where fans from upstate and New England also loved his bantering way. I was fortunate that by being allowed into the lair I got to meet many people who developed into strong acquaintances like John Pricci and John Imbriale–or future business associates like prominent owner Bob Spiegel.
Somehow, he managed to worm me onto his Tuesday night racing recap shows even when I became prominent in the New York breeding industry whose product he privately disdained with a sobriquet of his own which is not quite fit for a family newspaper. I still have the video tapes from those shows and suppose they should be converted to digital since the VCR is long gone, but the memories are strong without having to rewind the lives we lived.
Harvey was a pal for a long time. He was also a perfect New York mensch–a hero to the horseplayer and (secretly at times) more than a few of the hobnobs of the sport. When the news came of his passing, what popped into my brain was that NYRA should do something permanent to honor a man who, in many ways, helped save the sport he loved when it needed all the help it could get.
So, since there is a statue in the Saratoga paddock of a horse that epitomized the lifetime achievement of a pillar of the sport of “kings”–Sea Hero; and, since there is a statue in the Belmont paddock of the great “savior” of racing–Secretariat; should there not be one placed in the horseplayer's perfect paddock–Aqueduct–to honor a man who, like the horse, will always be with us.
Harvey Pack, the engagingly witty curmudgeon who entertained and informed decades of racetrack fans in New York and beyond as a popular radio, television and handicapping seminar host, has died at 94.
Pack's death was confirmed by the New York Racing Association (NYRA), which employed him from 1974 to 1998. Daily Racing Form reported the cause was complications from cancer.
Pack made a lasting impression as a self-deprecating “wiseguy's wiseguy” who passionately advocated for the underdog while never running out of strange-but-true racetrack tales and anecdotes, many of which involved the seemingly universal racetrack desire to gain an edge and cash big (although Pack himself rarely bet more than $100 a race, and often far less than that).
“May the horse be with you!” was Pack's signature signoff to the generations of horseplayers he taught while hosting the nation's first in-depth, analytical nightly race recap show (He came up with that classic tag line by altering the well-known phrase from the 1977 Star Wars film, substituting the word “horse” for the movie's more-famous “force.”).
And each evening's recital of that line after the last race was traditionally accompanied by Pack hurling his program directly at the camera to signify the end of the broadcast–similar to the way a frustrated bettor leaving the track after a losing day might throw down his own program in disgust.
Pack was born and raised on Manhattan's Upper West Side, and he got hooked on the game by his father during racing's golden era, when massive crowds would jam the New York tracks.
According to a 1998 profile of Pack written by Andrew Beyer of the Washington Post, the elder Pack would give his teenage son $10 to go to Aqueduct Saturday morning and save seats for his group of racing pals. Young Harvey instantly grew enamored with the allure of the track, where in the 1940s, Runyonesque characters and noir-laced intrigue lurked around every corner.
WATCH: NYRA's Andy Serling spends “An Afternoon With Harvey Pack”
Pack was quick to pick up on the nuances of both the Racing Form and the sociology of the betting public. When his mother told him that he had “surpassed his father” with his interest in horse betting, Pack recalled to Beyer, “I didn't know if she meant as a handicapper or as a bum.”
Decades later, Pack told the Los Angeles Times, “My father was a degenerate, and I say that affectionately. He went to the track five days a week until he was 87, then cut back to two days a week. I knew then he wouldn't live much longer. He died at 88.”
In 1953, Pack was in the Army and stationed at Fort Dix in New Jersey, convenient to Monmouth Park, Garden State Park and Atlantic City Race Course. According to that 1986 Times story, “word somehow spread that Pack had been a professional handicapper, which wasn't true. A handicapper, yes; a pro, no.”
A colonel heard this rumor and summoned Pack. As Harvey told it, the officer was an avid horseplayer too, but couldn't get away to the track as often as he liked. Pack was assigned to run his bets, and even to make some of the selections.
“I'd go to the track on weekdays and then get a weekend pass and meet my friends at Belmont,” Pack said. “When I told them I was going to the track every day, they couldn't believe it. They thought when I went into the Army I'd be fighting in Korea, or something like that, not going to the track.”
For 17 years after leaving the Army, Pack wrote about television for a newspaper syndication service–always arranging his workload so as not to interfere with daily trips to the New York tracks.
Off-track-betting was just coming into vogue in the early 1970s, but horseplayers had no way of hearing or seeing the results. Pack pitched an idea to WNBC radio–he would call race in the manner of a track announcer, but give the entire race and its results in a compact, 30-second burst.
That show, known as “Pack at the Track,” grew so popular that in 1974, NYRA hired him away to be its director of promotions while giving him additional on-air opportunities.
He began hosting the “Harvey Pack's Paddock Club” handicapping seminars, and later the “Thoroughbred Action” and “Inside Racing” nightly and weekly recap shows on SportsChannel in the early days of cable TV. With well-informed race-analyzing guests from the New York press box corps and colorful trainers and jockey agents from the backstretch, those insightful shows were required watching for aspiring racetrack degenerates during a run that lasted through 1998.
During that time, the bald, bespectacled and ever-wisecracking Pack was also hired to be part of the first few Breeders' Cup broadcasts on national TV, primarily to add levity and make bets with a mock bankroll (often making fun of himself when his horses finished up the track).
Beyond New York, Pack had an especially fervent following in New England. When Suffolk Downs in Boston hired him to come up and do a weekend's worth of on-air work on several occasions in the 1980s and early 1990s, it was one of the most popular promotions the track ran all year.
Pack would do his schtick, pose for every photograph, make time for every autograph, and shake every hand. Yet he was also kind enough to take aside the track's younger on-air talent and members of the press box crew to encourage them to forge their own ways in the sport.
In his Post profile, Beyer described Pack as being “ousted” by NYRA in 1998 at age 71 after “top executives informed him…that they wanted 'to go in a different direction.'”
The move wasn't popular. But Pack didn't speak bitterly in public about that decision, nor did he disappear entirely from the New York racing scene. Daily Racing Form hired him to continue to host daily Saratoga seminars for a number of years, moving the location off NYRA's property and to the adjacent Lincoln Avenue watering hole, Siro's.
Pack's NYRA business card once described him as “Doctor of Equine Prophecy,” and fans continued to seek him out to wish him well and pry for tips on hot horses.
Even though Pack knew he couldn't routinely deliver the winners those folks craved, he liked to have a little fun with them. He sometimes told naïve Saratoga racegoers that each day he got an advance script of how the races would turn out, and that it was sitting right on the desk back in his office near the backyard paddock.
More than a few of those wide-eyed casual fans asked if Harvey would let them have a peek at it.
Perhaps in a more practical sense, Pack's followers would have been better off adhering to the more general tidbits of wisdom that he reliably dispensed year after year. If you watched him on SportsChannel growing up, there's no way you can ever forget the mantra-like admonition to, “Never bet a favorite attempting something [i.e., a new distance] it's never done before.”
Often, Pack more bluntly advocated for not betting on the heavy chalk at all: “Hardly is now a man alive who paid the mortgage at 3-to-5,” was another oft-repeated rhyming quip.
“Harvey knew horse racing and made it a lot of fun to watch,” said NYRA broadcast handicapper Andy Serling, Pack's on-air partner for a time and a friend for more than 40 years. “Whether he was on the air or just talking with fans, he connected with everyone and never took himself too seriously. A lot of what we do on the air today goes right back to Harvey. He was the forerunner and a trailblazer in how we cover horse racing today.”
Pack's 2007 autobiography, May The Horse Be With You: Pack at the Track, written with Peter Thomas Fornatale, remains entertaining reading 14 years after its publication.
In a 2018 profile of Pack for Daily Racing Form, Fornatale described how “one afternoon over lunch, I asked him if he had any regrets about his career choices.”
Pack paused, considering only briefly if he'd rather have done something else with his life.
“I wouldn't have been able to get to the track every day,” Harvey mused wryly. “And anyway, I didn't want to work that hard.”
Pack is survived by his wife, Joy; two children, five grandchildren, and one great grandchild. Arrangements for services are pending.
Harvey Pack, who became an unlikely broadcasting pioneer by delivering a blend of insightful, irreverent and heartfelt commentary on horse racing as host of the country's first nightly racing replay show, died Tuesday in New York City. He was 94.
For more than three decades starting in the mid-1970s, Pack was one of the best-known personalities in New York racing, celebrated as the voice of the common fan, the $2 bettor. At NYRA, Pack created and hosted racing replay shows like “Thoroughbred Action” and “Inside Racing,” sprinkling the replays of races with his analysis, predictions and lively tales about the Runyonesque characters who frequented Belmont Park, Aqueduct Racetrack and Saratoga Race Course.
As NYRA's Director of Promotions and Special Events, Pack created and hosted “The Paddock Club” at Belmont and Saratoga in which fans gathered to discuss racing and handicapping, often joined by special guests.
In the early 1970s, Pack was a 40-something Manhattan-based syndicated writer whose job allowed him to spend afternoons at the track. Off-track betting had just launched in New York, and many radio stations were reporting race results – none with much vigor, Pack noted.
That inspired an idea: Why not call a race with the excitement of a track announcer and squeeze in some stories, Pack reasoned, all of it condensed into a 30-second spot, the average length of a highlight reel. He even had the perfect name for his reports: “Pack at the Track.”
The idea, common today, was revolutionary for its time. He sold the idea to WNBC, and “Pack at the Track” proved so popular that NYRA hired him in 1974, where he spent the next quarter-century.
“Harvey Pack was an authentic voice and an innovator who turned a lifelong passion into a career and became one of our sport's greatest advocates and ambassadors, all in his unique, 'only in New York' way,” said Dave O'Rourke, NYRA President & CEO. “He was a visionary who meant a great deal to thoroughbred racing and we look forward to honoring his legacy in the near future.”
At a time when broadcasting was transitioning to cable, Pack hosted the nationally syndicated race-recap show on SportsChannel, which became the way that many owners and breeders around the country in those days were able to see their horses run. Starting in 1984 and for the next 10 years, Pack was also part of the NBC broadcast team for the Breeders' Cup World Championships, including those held in 1985 at Aqueduct; and in 1990, 1995 and 2001 at Belmont.
At the root of Pack's popularity – his NYRA business card described him as “Doctor of Equine Prophecy” – was an ability to convey his love of horse racing and handicapping to fans and doing so with humor and humility.
“Harvey knew horse racing and made it a lot of fun to watch,” said NYRA senior racing analyst Andy Serling, Pack's broadcast partner for a time and a friend for more than 40 years. “Whether he was on the air or just talking with fans, he connected with everyone and never took himself too seriously. A lot of what we do on the air today goes right back to Harvey. He was the forerunner and a trailblazer in how we cover horse racing today.”
Even after leaving NYRA, Pack remained a familiar presence at all three NYRA tracks. At Saratoga, Pack and Serling hosted Daily Racing Form seminars across the street from the track at Siro's restaurant, where he presided over a panel of rotating handicappers, offering his wit and wisdom to fans who showed up in droves.
Pack's 2007 book, May The Horse Be With You: Pack at the Track, written with Peter Thomas Fornatale, is a window into how the racing game hooked him as a kid and never let go.
Pack, born and bred on Manhattan's Upper West Side, grew up during racing's golden era when huge crowds packed the New York tracks on weekends and horses like Omaha, War Admiral and Stymie were front-page celebrities. As a boy, Pack would be given $10 by his father to take the first train from Penn Station to Belmont and hold a couple of seats. Arriving before post time, Pack perused the Daily Racing Form and became a handicapper.
Later, while serving in the U.S. Army and based at Fort Dix, New Jersey, a Colonel discovered his interest in horses and made Pack his personal handicapper on frequent trips to nearby Atlantic City Race Course.
Pack once said that he told “the same three jokes for 20 years.” But his stories about the colorful characters he came to know at New York tracks were seemingly endless. At the top of his list was a disheveled handicapper named Mr. Dirt, a Columbia graduate, who, as Pack put it in his book, “had an Ivy League mind, but not the wardrobe.”
Asked why his television work on NBC with the late Peter Axthelm was so popular, Pack had a one-sentence answer: “We were successful because nobody ever televised racing (before) with a sense of humor,” he said. Told that he may have been the most famous person in the history of New York racing, Pack corrected his admirer. “I'm 'horseplayer' famous,” he said.
Pack is survived by his wife Joy, two children, five grandchildren and one great grandchild.
