Good news for Trevor Denman fans: The iconic track announcer has no desire to retire anytime soon despite the fact he’s been missing from the Del Mar announcer’s booth the entire year.
Denman, 68, has been home at his 500-acre farm in Minnesota out of concerns for COVID-19.
He missed his first summer meet this year since taking over for Harry Henson in 1984, and he’ll be absent again beginning Saturday when Del Mar kicks off its seventh fall meet with substitute announcer Larry Collmus in the booth.
Trevor Denman
But hold no fears. Denman misses Del Mar and he’s looking forward to returning for the 2021 summer meet.
“You can never judge, but I’ve got between five, 10 years (of work left), and even more,” Denman said during a Friday phone interview. “I’m not ready to just throw in the towel right now and stay here. I love the farm, but I’m here for nine months of the year, and (Del Mar) actually gives you something to look forward to. You think, ‘OK, come July we’re going back to San Diego.’”
In the meantime, he spends his days near Kellogg, a small town of about 450 in southern Minnesota.
As he says, “We are very, very, very remote. I cannot see a living farm house. I can see some barns a couple of miles away, but that’s it. I cannot actually see a farm house at all. We got so lucky to find it and we’re so happy to be here.”
But living on a large farm that includes a driveway that’s one mile long doesn’t make Denman immune from the coronavirus. He and his wife very rarely interact with the general population, but he’s also not living in a bubble.
“I’ve got to go get gas, I’ve gotta go get supplies once every two weeks, so I’m not immune to it, but the chances of getting it out here is as close to zero as you’re going to get,” he said.
It was out of extreme caution that Denman made the decision to skip Del Mar’s summer meet. He thought he’d be coming back for the fall meet, but he didn’t want to take a chance while COVID-19 was still thriving.
“The thought of going to San Diego with that epidemic on was just too frightening,” he said. “I told Joe Harper (Del Mar CEO), ‘Can you just imagine if my wife Robin caught it and something happened to her?’ You couldn’t live with that. If you get a heart attack or a semi hits you on the freeway, hey, that’s part of living. But this virus, if you don’t have to go into it, why would you?”
Despite the fact he’s been a track announcer for close to 50 years, Denman says he doesn’t sit around and watch horse racing when he’s not working.
For instance, he watched very little of the Del Mar meet this summer.
Watch this flashback:
He owns race horses in his native South Africa, so that’s where his interest lies.
“I watch Santa Anita every now and again, but very, very rarely,” he said. “And New York racing and that, I just don’t have an interest in it.”
Denman, who’s called many Breeders’ Cup races, says he won’t tune in for next weekend’s event at Keeneland Race Course. He said he might record the Classic, but that’s it. Saturdays are reserved for watching his favourite sport, soccer.
“It clashes with my soccer, and soccer is more important,” he said.
So look for Denman to return next summer after what will have amounted to a two-year vacation.
“It’s a really weird kind of setup,” he said. “I’m not officially retired. I work three months of the year, but I might as well be (retired). If you have to work at a track, let it be Del Mar. The people are so nice. The vicinity is so nice. That whole Del Mar area is just magic.”
- www.ocregister.com
