{"id":271092,"date":"2025-07-18T04:14:16","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T04:14:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/271092\/"},"modified":"2025-07-18T04:14:16","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T04:14:16","slug":"del-mar-summer-track-announcer-larry-collmus-ready-for-the-roar-of-the-crowd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/271092\/","title":{"rendered":"Del Mar Summer: Track Announcer Larry Collmus Ready For The Roar Of The Crowd"},"content":{"rendered":"

Del Mar Summer: Track Announcer Larry Collmus Ready For The Roar Of The Crowd<\/a> originally appeared on Paulick Report<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When Trevor Denman first stepped into the Del Mar announcer’s booth to replace Harry Henson in 1984, a teen-aged Larry Collmus was practicing race calls 2,700 miles away, lugging binoculars and a tape recorder up to the roof of Maryland tracks and rehearsing for what would become his life\u2019s calling (no pun intended).<\/p>\n

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One year later, in 1985, Collmus got his first professional announcing gig as backup race caller at Bowie, then was hired in 1986 as assistant announcer at the other Maryland tracks. In 1987, Collmus hit the road, calling the inaugural season of racing at the newly opened and short-lived Birmingham Turf Club in Alabama. He still wasn\u2019t old enough to legally buy a beer.<\/p>\n

Forty years after his first race-calling job and (by his count) 40 tracks later, it\u2019s Collmus\u2019 turn to make the Del Mar announcer\u2019s booth his home for the summer, following Denman\u2019s decision earlier this year to retire from a long and distinguished career. Though he replaced the popular South African during the 2020 COVID year when the grandstand was empty and has called the last five Del Mar fall meets, this will be the first time Collmus will be high above the track apron to open the summer meet and hear what Denman annually described as the \u201croar from the Del Mar crowd\u201d as the field breaks from the starting gate in front of the stands.<\/p>\n

The 86th season of summer racing at Del Mar begins on Friday, July 18, with a first post of 2 p.m. PT. Entries can be found here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Collmus, a resident of New Jersey, has criss-crossed the country chasing racetrack microphones. There was Golden Gate Fields and the county fairs in Northern California, Suffolk Downs near Boston, Florida\u2019s Gulfstream Park, Churchill Downs and Kentucky Downs in the Bluegrass State, Monmouth Park near his home at the Jersey Shore and the New York Racing Association tracks. He\u2019s also called at five harness tracks and steeplechase races. When he’s not calling races, he’s served as an analyst on FanDuel TV.<\/p>\n

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While calling the races at Monmouth Park in 2010, Collmus received widespread attention for his colorful description of a race where two similarly named horses \u2013 Mywifenosevrything and Thewifedoesntknow \u2013 finished one-two in an otherwise nondescript claiming race. The Youtube videos have had well over a million views and the call by Collmus was picked up on national network news shows.<\/p>\n

The next year, he got a phone call that changed the arc of his career, leading to his being hired by NBC as the voice of the Triple Crown and Breeders’ Cup.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got that call out of the blue while sitting in the announcer\u2019s booth at Gulfstream Park,\u201d Collmus recalled. \u201cIt was a New York number and I\u2019m wondering who the heck this was. I had no idea at the time that Tom (Durkin) was stepping down from calling the Triple Crown races on NBC, so I thought somebody was playing a joke on me at first. But as it turned out, he really was retiring and I was put into a great, great situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

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When the Breeders\u2019 Cup championships moved back to NBC from ESPN, Collmus was given the opportunity to call those races as well.\u00a0(Collmus no longer calls the Belmont Stakes after FOX replaced NBC two years ago as the New York Racing Association’s broadcast partner.)<\/p>\n

He\u2019s had many memorable calls, the most famous of which was almost certainly American Pharoah\u2019s Triple Crown-winning performance in the 2015 Belmont Stakes, ending a 37-year drought dating back to 1978 and Affirmed.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, Collmus is excited about his new digs and the opportunity to call races throughout the Del Mar summer meet.<\/p>\n

“I’ve loved the fall meet and have gotten to know the area so well, so there’s plenty to look forward to,” he said. “I think these two months are going to fly by, but I’m going to try and enjoy them as much as I can.”<\/p>\n

As for the Del Mar announcer\u2019s booth, it’s open-air unlike many booths that are glassed in. \u201cWe\u2019re able to do that here because of the weather,\u201d he said, \u201cand because of that I get to hear the excitement of the crowd, which makes me that much more excited.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI\u2019m looking forward to seeing all the people down there, all the different colors and how everybody\u2019s going to be dressed on opening day,” he said. “It\u2019s Del Mar\u2019s version of the Kentucky Derby.\u201d<\/p>\n

This story was originally reported by Paulick Report<\/a> on Jul 17, 2025, where it first appeared.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Del Mar Summer: Track Announcer Larry Collmus Ready For The Roar Of The Crowd originally appeared on Paulick…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4107],"tags":[34543,42254,99868,102004,91464,11105,72881,102821,1071,79,102001,32579,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-271092","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-racing","8":"tag-churchill-downs","9":"tag-del-mar","10":"tag-gulfstream-park","11":"tag-larry-collmus","12":"tag-monmouth-park","13":"tag-nbc","14":"tag-new-york-racing-association","15":"tag-race-caller","16":"tag-racing","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-trevor-denman","19":"tag-triple-crown","20":"tag-uk","21":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114872297912193176","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}