Phil Georgeff brought 96,131 memories to Chicago horse racing

When retired track announcer Phil Georgeff died recently, I was remiss in not mentioning the longtime “Voice of Chicago Racing.” If you are a Chicago area sports fan, his name and voice were as synonymous with horse racing as Harry Caray was to the Cubs and White Sox.

Georgeff is in the Guinness Book of World Records for calling 96,131 horse races. The reason the number is so high is he called thoroughbred races in the daytime and harness races at night for many years.

His signature phrase was “spinning out of the turn.” It was actually more appropriate for harness racing, in which the drivers sit in a two-wheel sulky behind the horse.

But he had a logical reason for saying it in every race at the top of the stretch. Back then, horse racing got a lot more media coverage. Local TV stations used to show the stretch run of the day’s feature race in the sports segment. “Spinning out of the turn” was a verbal cue to the sports producer of where to edit the tape.

The popularity of Georgeff was never more apparent than when he was fired at Arlington Park in 1982. A good friend of mine from the New York Racing Association, John Imbriale, got the unenviable task of replacing a legend.

Imbriale joked that he would get booed as he was giving the scratches and changes before the first race at Arlington. He worked there one season, then returned to the NYRA, at which he remains a talented backup announcer to Larry Collmus.

When Georgeff reclaimed his spot in the announcer’s booth, it was the return of a conquering hero in Chicago.

Georgeff epitomizes something I have felt strongly about for more than a decade — that track announcers do not receive the credit they deserve in the horse racing industry. In each local market, the track announcer is the face and voice of the sport.

I have campaigned that track announcers should be included in Racing’s Hall of Fame at Saratoga. In a bygone era, there were legends such as Fred Capossela in New York, Joe Hernandez and Harry Henson in California, and Chic Anderson in the Midwest. And I have barely scratched the surface with those few names.

In recent years, people such as Terry Wallace at Oaklawn Park, Mike Battaglia in Kentucky and Tom Durkin in New York have retired. One of my favorites is Dave Johnson, who coined the signature phrase “and down the stretch they come,” and is well-deserving of that recognition.

DELTA JACKPOT

The $1 million Delta Downs Jackpot has fast established itself as an early mirror to some horses to watch for in next year’s Kentucky Derby. For example, Exaggerator won the Jackpot in 2015 and went on to place in the Derby and win the Preakness.

Two horses that stick out in this year’s edition are Hot Sean (7-2) and Our Stormin Norman (8-1). They are trained by Bob Baffert and Mark Casse.

Richard Eng’s horse racing column is published Friday in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. You can buy his Del Mar picks at www.racedaylasvegas.com. You can email him at rich_eng@hotmail.com and follow him on Twitter @richeng4propick.