Hold Me Back

[P-Dub]

Battaglia is the single worst race caller on the planet.  I don\'t even need to have heard all of them to know that. Between that gawd awful voice and his inability to articulately describe what is going on in a race, nobody else is in his class.

He\'s gotta have pictures of somebody with a farm animal.

How about some bail out money to get rid of him?? I\'ve got $5 on it.

[Uncle Buck]

I guess I\'ll pile on the Battaglia Bash Wagon. There was a nice 49er 3YO colt named ROAR running the 90s. I vividly remember Mike B screaming ROAR about 10 times during a stakes race ROAR won - might have even been the Lane\'s End. I still joke with a buddy about that race call many years later.

John Dooley is the by far the best race caller working today IMO. Durkin ruled in the 90s but is way over the hill. He\'s butchered a lot of big calls the last few years. Denman is annoying at best. My top two guys have to be Dooley and Paul Allen of Cantebury in that order with Curt Becker of Keeneland a close third

[richiebee]

Unc:

My best race caller experience was at Keeneland in the early 1980s where,of
course, there was no race caller. You, your tickets, your binoculars,the sound
of hooves pounding, the roar of the crowd as the field hit the far turn. Quite
surreal. Simulcasting put an end to that era.

Durkin--once the gold standard, now probably as bored and disgusted as the rest
of us with NY racing.

Denman-- still can not forgive him for failing to recognize that Pine Island had
broken down in the BC Distaff.

Dooley-- quite solid but beginning to get a little too hyper for me. If you need
a racecaller to make the races exciting (a) you are probably not betting enough
or (b) you need to adjust your meds.

I think the guy at Mth/GP (Kollmus?) is a little more subdued than Dooley and
hence gets the nod.

One of the only things that almost all race fans agree on is that Battaglia is
probably the worst, but only by a nose over the Tampa guy, who sounds like he
should be on a sidewalk outside of a strip joint.

[Leamas57]

I disagree about the Lane\'s end. I saw Hard Spun cruise in that race and he became a solid key for the Triple Crown. Okay he didn\'t win the Derby, but I am paying attention to HMB. That last eight was fast!

[ajkreider]

Aren\'t the last 1/8ths on plastic always fast??

[richiebee]

I did not see HMB\'s race.

Given Billy Mott\'s very limited record with Derby and Triple Crown runners, if I
liked this colt I would be looking for some sign from the trainer that he
thought this guy could be competitive in the Derby.

If its a matter of the owner and not the trainer wanting to try the Derby I
would not be so enthusiastic.

List of trainers who the record will show have had relatively little success in
Triple Crown/Spring 3YO races-- WI Mott, H Allen Jerkens and Bobby Frankel, all
smart enough to know this is a physically strenuous period of racing and would
prefer not to train on the tight demanding schedule of Derby/Triple Crown races
and the preps leading up to them.

[Leamas57]

If that\'s a reference to how it imitates turf, okay, but from 1.38+ to 1.49+ and that was the leaders at a mile and the finish. He came from back and managed it.  There\'s fast and there\'s fast.