Final Night School session: Announcers, chart callers
“Night School”—the racing industry’s first national, interactive online fan education forum—offers its 40th and final session of the year on Monday, December 19. Presenting title sponsors of the program are the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, Daily Racing Form (DRF), the American Quarter Horse Association (AQHA) and Keeneland.
Co-hosted by Horseplayernow.com owners Jeremy Plonk and Joe Kristufek, the weekly Night School lessons are offered free to any racing fan who wants to learn more about the game. The 90-minute sessions, which take place from 8:30-10:00 p.m. (ET), offer both novice and advance-level fan education.
This week's Night School session focus will focus on track announcers and chart callers. Racing fans and handicappers will get an inside look at how horses are followed by the industry's leading eyes in the sky. Legendary NYRA announcer Tom Durkin will be among the session’s “Guest Instructors”. Joining Durkin will be NBC Sports Triple Crown announcer Larry Collmus of Gulfstream Park and Monmouth Park; Remington Park track announcer Dale Day; and Chuck Scaravilli, director of track and field operations for Equibase, the industry's official data provider.
Horse Player NOW's Joe Kristufek, Caton Bredar and Jeremy Plonk will co-host Night School this week, and Plonk will lend his personal expertise as a former chart caller in the field for Equibase. The session also will include video insights from Hawthorne Race Course track announcer Peter Galassi and Chicago-based Equibase chart caller David Miller.
While the 2011 Night School lesson plan ends with this Monday's topic, do note that a special, 90-minute Night School Santa Anita Meet Preview has been added to the calendar for Thursday, December 22 starting at 9:00 p.m. (ET). Popular jockey Joe Talamo and handicappers Jeff Siegel and Kurt Hoover are among the panelists who will analyze the West’s premier winter racing meet, which has its traditional opening day on December 26.
Fans who registered for at least 20 of the 40 Night School sessions in 2011 will receive a sponsor prize package and diploma through E-mail just after the New Year. Registrations also can be submitted by watching archived Night School sessions simply by inputting information at the Registration prompts within each of the archived topics. Deadline to register via archive for the 2011 diploma and prize package will be 12:00 midnight (ET) on December 23.
For more information on the 2012 Night School season, be sure to join the official mailing list at Horseplayernow.com.
Accompanying each session of Night School are relevant study materials, available for download, that pertain to the weekly topic. This week’s study materials on track announcers and chart callers can be downloaded here.
For an advance look at Monday night's video introduction from Joe Kristufek on track announcers and chart callers, visit the Night School Youtube page.
Each of the lessons over the 40 weeks will be archived, creating an educational library via the popular Cover It Live live-blogging technology used by many of the world’s leading news agencies.
