15 September 2016
By Amanda Rando
AFTER 40 years behind the binoculars racecalling, Kevin Thompson will always be remembered as the voice of Harold Park.
With a voice that is synonymous with Sydney’s greatest harness racing event the Miracle Mile, Thompson has had the pleasure to call many top horses in this time.
Having called victories by pacers Locarno, Popular Alm, Village Kid and Westburn Grant to name a few, broadcasting the Miracle Mile will always be a special memory for Thompson.
“The first Miracle Mile I called was in 1980 which was won by Locarno,” Thompson recalled.
“I called 29 straight (Miracle Miles) right up until Divisive in 2008, so I called the last 29 at Harold Park.”
One Miracle Mile that stands out is the 1983 edition won by Popular Alm.
“It was one of those races,” Thompson said.
“Gammalite used to do all of his work sitting in the death and Popular Alm was the speed horse but this was reversed.
“Poppy just kept going, he just dug in deep, and Vinnie Knight was such a character . . . it was just one of those races and to call two champions fighting out the race, I suppose I got a bit carried away.
“And that’s what you do when calling races, you know when history is happening.”
Thompson was lured to the magic of harness racing at an early age and it was the iconic complex at Harold Park that ignited this passion.
“I fell in love with harness racing going to Harold Park as a kid,” Thompson said.
“My father died when I was 11 but he did take me to Harold Park when I was young and I got the buzz.”
And Thompson quickly grew the desire to become a racecaller.
“It’s all I wanted to do and you will find most racecallers are the same,” Thompson said.
“I used to listen to all the great racecallers when I was a kid, Ken Howard, Vince Curry and Burt Bryant . . . I just wanted to do it.
“I’ve done that all my life – I don’t count it as work, it’s not work it’s what I wanted to do.
“I have been so lucky to have been able to do it.
“I just started to hang around the racetracks and callers.
“Ray Conroy was my mentor . . . he was with us for so long and a great harness racing caller, that helped many callers, and I was very grateful for him.
“He sent me along to some gymkhanas and non-TAB meetings and then eventually I got a spot to come on 2KY and I called a dog race.”
And it was not the easiest of races to call as it resulted in a dead heat.
“Fancy that a dead heat!” Thompson said.
“It just happened to be the day Ken Howard died as well.
“He was the man I looked up to and it was just coincidental so it was quite an ironic start.”
The year was 1976 and Thompson began calling all three codes following this while also working as a racing official at the then known Sydney Turf Club.
He then slowly moved away from that role and was solely just calling races.
Thompson then began calling at ‘The Ribbon of Light’, Harold Park.
“It was such a great era at that time at Harold Park,” Thompson said.
“That’s just where you wanted to go where you wanted to call.
“When Ray Conroy retired I took over.”
Fittingly, Thompson was the last person to ever call a race at the Glebe circuit, a race won by the late Karloo Mick.
“There was 17,000 (people) that turned up and it was a sad sort of night because everyone realised this is finished,” Thompson said.
“It had been going for so long and so many people would go out there every week and enjoy it and all of a sudden it was all over.
“The last race was a big field, 14 runners over two miles so it wasn’t an easy race to do but I had to get into it.”
During his many years calling races at Harold Park, there was one driver the stood out for Thompson and that was Inter Dominion winning reinsman Brian Hancock.
“I came up through the era of great drivers, I wasn’t calling in the ‘60s and ‘70s but I remember people like Jimmy Caffyn and Kevin Newman, Percy Hall, Lawrie Moulds, Les Chant, Kevin Robinson, they were great drivers but Brian Hancock changed the scene completely,” Thompson said.
“He was a dynamic driver, always thinking and would weave his way through fields.
“When he won that Inter Dominion on Weona Warrior it was one of the best drivers ever at Harold Park.
“He won that race because Weona Warrior wasn’t a great horse, he was a good horse but wasn’t a great horse for an Inter Dominion but Brian just outdrove them that night.
“He was a freak on the track at Harold Park.”
Thompson even drove against Hancock and over the years has juggled dabbling with a few horses while racecalling.
“When I first started calling I wasn’t getting a lot of work so I had a bit of time during the day to do something and I thought I would give it a go,” Thompson said.
“I started helping a few trainers . . . Charlie Parsons was a great trainer at Bankstown and he showed me what to do and I eventually got my own horses.”
Thompson had 508 drives for 42 wins and 100 placegetters and trained 39 winners and 101 placegetters.
And it was when Thompson had to drive in a race that gave broadcasters such as Greg Radley, Mark McNamara and Darren Flindell the start of their careers.
Some of Thompson’s winners included Persian Pat, Royal Gyro, Tempus Night and his last winner Alberich.
Having experienced many facets of harness racing and been involved in the industry professionally for so long, health has seen Thompson scale back his commitments.
“Late last year I had to have a bypass surgery, that went fine, I was ready to come back a month later but just before that I had a minor stroke,” Thomson said.
“It didn’t affect me in anyway except my eye.
“It damaged the peripheral vision of my eye and it was enough to prevent me from driving.
“The reason why I have had so long off, they said after six months it might come good it might not.
“I had my licence taken off me in mid June, so once I couldn’t drive I couldn’t go to the races.
“It’s only that one eye . . . I’m not sick I’m healthy, I look good, my lifestyle hasn’t changed it is just that one problem has affected my driving.”
This ultimately forced Thompson to hang up his binoculars at the age of 60.
After four decades of racecalling, broadcasting an estimated 70,000 races and many champions of this sport, Thompson said: “It has been great fun all the way through.”