Monday Morning Message with Jason Beem Nov. 11, 2024

A good Monday morning to you all! Writing to you today for the final time from sunny Pleasanton, California, as it’s time for me to get back to Florida. Ready for another cross country drive, and I’ll write about that in this Thursday’s column as traveling like this has become a pretty big part of my life the last few years. But I wanted to write today about the experience here in Pleasanton as well as just the experience of being a fill-in announcer or short timer at a track. 

As I wrote when I first got here, Golden State Racing in Pleasanton was launching their inaugural commercial race meet this fall and asked me just a week ahead of their opening day if I could come down and announce for a bit before heading off to Tampa Bay Downs for the winter season that gets underway on Nov. 20. It really didn’t alter my plans too much, as I was planning to spend some time in California and go to the Breeders’ Cup, so I just figured it would be a fun adventure and I can make some money, as opposed to the Breeders’ Cup trip which would have been the opposite of that! 

I’ve had the good fortune to do a handful of fill-in announcing gigs in my life. Monmouth Park in 2019 was for a few months, Gulfstream Park West (Calder as most of you know it) for a few weeks in 2018 and 2019, and Sam Houston last year. I even got to do a night at Remington Park back in 2022. It’s a little weird because you’re usually in a booth that isn’t “yours." You feel like you’re kind of holding the spot for someone else, and I’d say that for me, I tend to be a little more reserved with calls and just try to stick to the basics instead of being cute or funny. 

Last Friday, a young man named Liam Molinaro came in and guest-called a race. I was telling him afterwards that calling a one-off race is one of the tougher things to do in our business. You don’t know the angles, you often don’t know the silks, the horses, or the riders, at least on an everyday basis. Plus you’re usually quite nervous. The nice thing about being a real fill-in is you get some races and days to kind of get comfortable there. Even tracks like Tampa and Colonial, where I’ve called everyday for years, it still takes a few days or even weeks to really feel back at home in that booth. I just these last couple of weeks started to feel at home at Golden State Racing as far as calling and being friendly with my co-workers. 

I tend to be a little bit of a loner at work but the booth at Pleasanton doesn’t allow for that. Usually I spend most of my announcing day just sitting in my room and memorizing names to myself and that’s kind of it. Well here, I share the space with the stewards and the placing judges. It took a while to get used to people talking right behind me as I called the race. But it was also kind of fun to have people to chat with between races, see what the stewards do during the races and basically see how they conduct an inquiry (I think we only had two while I was there). So that was kind of a learning experience because usually I just get the decision and that’s it. 

Most of all it was just great to get to spend a few weeks in the Bay Area, call some fun races, and have a new experience in racing. Every track is a little different and it’s usually the people who make them unique. So big thanks to the people at Golden State Racing for making my visit a fun one and I wish them all the luck going forward. 

Time to get on the road!!