In honor of Tom Durkin’s retirement from race calling on August 31, we are taking a look back at 40 of his most memorable calls–one for each day of the 2014 Saratoga meet.
We hope everyone enjoyed yesterday’s epic renewal of the Travers. In watching the two Jimmy Jerkens’ entrants hit the wire together, we couldn’t help but recall another instance where two stable mates dueled to a tantalizingly close finish in a Grade 1 stakes at Saratoga–the 1997 Go For Wand.
Durkin has crowned the battle between John Kimmel’s champion Hidden Lake and Flat Fleet Feet as “the most exciting race I’ve ever called.”
Hidden Lake entered the 1997 Go For Wand as a heavy favorite and considered by many to be the star of the Filly and Mare division. However, as they entered the stretch of the 1997 Go For Wand, Hidden Lake was passed by Flat Fleet Feet, not once, but twice.
As Durkin recalls:
Hidden Lake did something that I’d never seen before and have never seen since − she lost the lead twice in the stretch and came back to beat Flat Fleet Feet, who was a great filly, a Grade 1 filly. And they were both trained by John Kimmel. It was a very close photo finish, but I could tell that Hidden Lake won, and so did [Richard] Migliore. It was an incredible display of gameness. She extended herself so much that she couldn’t make it back to the winner’s circle. Migliore had to get off her, and they had to hose her down in front of the clubhouse. They finally revived her, and she came back to the winner’s circle to tremendous, crazy applause.
The scene following the race was filled with potentially tragic ironies. Hidden Lake had just expended an incredibly courageous effort, the likes of which had not been seen since the 1990 Breeders’ Cup Distaff, where the namesake of the race Hidden Lake had just captured, Go For Wand, gallantly fought to finish the race despite suffering a catastrophic injury in the final 1/16th. As an even further reminder, Go For Wand was laid to rest in the Saratoga infield, just yards away from where Hidden Lake appeared to be in distress. Fortunately, Hidden Lake was revived, and as Durkin notes, returned to a champion’s reception before the appreciative Saratoga crowd.
For those of us lucky to be there that day, it was an unbelievable scene which was undoubtedly enhanced by yet another classic Durkin call.
