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 Derby dreams Rookie announcer reaches pinnacle of profession
Posted: Friday April 30, 1999 05:24 PM
ATLANTA (CNN/SI) -- If you are a race car driver, you point toward Indy or Daytona. If you are a football player, it's the Super Bowl. But if you are a Thoroughbred race track announcer, where do your life dreams take you? Ask Luke Kruytbosch who got his answer just this year. As though preparing for a series of nine one-man shows, Kruytbosch goes over his lines. It's a ritual ingrained in this 37-year-old, but this is Churchill Downs and you can hear a slight shiver in the pipes as he lives his dream. Just a few days on the job and only the fifth track announcer in the storied history of the place, Kruytbosch has just a few programs to settle himself down before becoming the voice of the 125th Kentucky Derby. "When I was calling races in Albuquerque 12 years ago, " he says, "the general manager asked me what my goal was, whether to be a track announcer, whatever. And I said one day I'd like to call the Kentucky Derby. Almost like a high school football player saying, 'Yeah, I wanna start for the 49ers'." When Kurt Becker resigned earlier this year, Churchill Downs called Kruytbosch who was working at Hollywood Park in Los Angeles. Of course, he jumped at the chance and saw the difference in racing communities immediately. "I was leaving the track on opening day and I got caught in a traffic jam out here on [Interstate] 264 and everybody who cut in front of me gave me a little wave," Kruytbosch said. "That wasn't the way it was in L.A. when I had to drive home on the 105 [Freeway]." On this particular day, just three into a job he hopes will last the rest of his life, the track is sloppy but the voice coming from the tiny old booth near the famous spires is anything but. It is silky, smooth and well-rehearsed. There is history in front of him and more immediately behind. There in the corner is the old chair of Chick Anderson, the fabled Churchill Downs announcer from the '60s and '70s. An age-old air-conditioner chills the room. But while he revels in the everyday existence, he knows his pinnacle comes in the 7th race Saturday. "I've done the Kentucky Derby -- the last week about 50 times," Kruytbosch recalls. "Everytime I'm in my car, I'm doing the Ketntucky Derby on the way home so, we'll see how it goes, if it goes like one of my prep races in my mind." OK, so who wins? Kruytbosch laughs and says, "I had Prime Timber winning it one time, I'll tell you." In the meantime, he matches his crayons to the right silks and practices the sometimes-tricky names, trying not to allow the Derby to infringe on his job at hand. But you know, somewhere in the depths of this fertile young mind, he has the legends coming down the stretch. "'Secretariat's got the lead by two lengths and, on the outside, it's Bold Ruler and Seattle Slew'," Kruytbosch said. "It's gonna be an unbelievable feeling. I hope I can get through it okay." Kruytbosch has also been named the race caller at Ellis Park, the sister park to Churchill Downs in Henderson, Kentucky. But now with the Derby on his resume, there is little doubt that he has reached his pinnacle of his profession.
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