This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at for further information. You're listening to WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News.Ĭopyright © 2014 NPR. Leiderman write this? He wrote our theme music. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WILLIAM TELL OVERTURE") And new when you retire, maybe we'll go out and play golf or something. Good luck to you, OK.ĭURKIN: All right Scott. SIMON: Tom Durkin, the voice of the Triple Crown. The hardest part is going to be without that passion that I've had for 43 years for describing these great events. Somehow I'll have to replace that with something. I realize that there is a great passion in my life that's not going to be there anymore. So - and I have no second thoughts about it whatsoever. SIMON: Tom, next time you hear it's post time are you going to get a little teary-eyed?ĭURKIN: You know, I'm a little sentimental about it. (SOUNDBITE OF YOUTUBE CLIP, "TOM DURKIN'S BEST RACE CALL")ĭURKIN: About six lengths off the lead followed by Homeroom Jester and the trailer is Dolarolarorrarockadockamolahholah.ĭURKIN: Hackahmackahdolohrollocolamockahdackahmolahhackahdohkah. But during the race, you know, you name a horse Yakahickamickadola, you going to let it lay there? So I said, the owner wants me to screw up the name, fine - here we go. I wasn't even going to try.ĭURKIN: Oh, yeah. SIMON: There was a horse, I have seen the video, whose name you had a hard time with. SIMON: Can I ask you about a couple of calls for which you are famed? Sometimes I even resort to the extremes of exercise. But if there's kind of a big event coming up, such as this, and I start to feel a little queasy, I'll just go into hypnosis. Right now, I've been doing hypnosis for the past couple of weeks. Can I get you to talk about that a little?ĭURKIN: Sure. SIMON: You've spoken openly about having performance anxiety. And, you know, in the beginning it was not easy - memorizing the silks and coming up with the names. It's just that I've been able to do it so much over the years. You know, and I don't have a memory that's particularly better than anybody else's. SIMON: But you have to rattle off eight or nine names that might have been unfamiliar to you - just a couple of - I mean, how you do it?ĭURKIN: Well, I have a friend of mine, given some malapropisms, that says I have a pornographic memory.ĭURKIN: But I neither have a pornographic nor a photographic memory. Now it occurred to me, when we were during some preparation on you - like a baseball announcer, all he or she has to do is go, when there's a home run - Yoho. Make Music for Me, Big Mountain, (Unintelligible) on the outside and they're coming down to the finish. This is the 2010 Kentucky Derby.ĭURKIN: Super Saver and Calvin Borel one full length from Derby here. SIMON: Let's listen to one of your calls. If you're going to bet against a Triple Crown, it's probably going to be with me in the booth. SIMON: How many times have you made the call at Belmont when there was a chance for a horse to win the Triple Crown?ĭURKIN: I am 0 for 7 with a scratch. So today is his last chance to call a Triple Crown winner. This year, he'll step down as track announcer too at the end of August. He retired from his television work with NBC a few years ago. So when Laura Hillenbrand sent a copy of "Seabiscuit" to Tom Durkin, she inscribed it, to Tom, the soundtrack to some of the most exciting moments of my life.įor decades, Tom Durkin has been calling horse races at Belmont Park and other tracks.
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