The best seat in the house
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Longtime race-caller Will O’Keefe dishes on what’s he’s seen in more than 40 years in the stand
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As much as jump racing is an institution in Virginia, so is the lifelong horseman behind the microphone.
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Horses and jockeys come and go on the steeplechase circuit, but for more than four decades, one thing has remained the same: starting Saturday, Will O'Keefe extends his racecalling career to 41 years, and counting, in the tower broadcasting as the elevated "eyes" to provide play-by-play for spectators and horsemen.
O’Keefe warms up his pipes at Saturday’s
Rappahannock Point-to-Point, which returns to the Virginia point-to-point lineup March 7. O’Keefe appreciates the early-season opportunity to get back into practice after four months off since the Montpelier Races last November.
“The
entries are great,” he says of the renewed Rappahannock meet, adding that
the new course north of Culpeper, Virginia is “a perfect viewing course, really nice,” something that also aids the racecaller. “You’ll be able to see every stride with me.”
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O’Keefe’s confident, well-informed and dramatically delivered stride-by-stride summary of the action has come to be the signature of Virginia’s active jump racing circuit.
O’Keefe will announce at some 20 meets this year – all the Virginia point-to-points and almost all the commonwealth’s hunt meets, plus the Maryland Hunt Cup, Grand National and Pennsylvania Hunt Cup. Over the years, it’s added up for an impressive grand total – he figures he’s called more than 5,000 races.
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O'Keefe shows off his win ticket on Optimus Prime after the 2018 David L. “Zeke” Ferguson Memorial (Gr. 2).
Tod Marks
photo
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“I have a photographic memory, so I guess that helps a lot,” O’Keefe says when asked the obvious – “How do you do it?” “I have the added bonus that I’m taking a lot of these entries myself (through the Central Entry Office he created 35 years ago), so I’m already ‘seeing’ the silks when someone calls to enter a horse, and I’m mentally seeing the horses and riders they’re naming so I have a little head start.
“I used to go to the paddock before every race to look at the horses, and equipment, and jockeys, and silks. I don’t do that so much any more – after 40 years I’ve got it down pretty good.”
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O’Keefe sort of backed into the announcer assignment – he was Casanova Hunt Point-to-Point race secretary in the late 1970s, and one of his jobs was to find a replacement when announcer Barney Brittle stepped down after the 1978 meet. He pressed his dad, veterinarian Dr. Frank O’Keefe, to help, son promising father he’d be on the old wooden stand at the Spring Hill Farm racecourse alongside him, helping identify horses, feeding him details on the runners and on the action as it unfolded.
“I realized after that first year, it’d be just as easy to do it myself,” Will O’Keefe says. He took the microphone in 1980, and has never looked back.
Having grown up going to racetracks on the east coast with his dad, the junior O’Keefe knew the finer points of a solid race call. “There’s a certain rhythm to it,” he explains the structure of his play-by-play. “I probably have a southern accent when I talk, but I don’t think I do when I announce. You learn to project your voice.”
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2019:
Monk Noland Award for service to the racing community by the Steeplechase Owners and Trainers Association and National Steeplechase Association
(below, NSA photo)
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2012:
Maryland Hunt Cup Association’s S. Bryce Wing trophy
(below, Douglas Lees photo)
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2011:
Named Loudoun Preservation Society’s preservationist of the year
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2011:
Yves Henry Lifetime Achievement award
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2007:
Inducted into the Virginia Steeplechase Hall of Fame
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1993-2010:
Executive director of the Westmoreland Davis Memorial Foundation at Morven Park
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1990:
VSA’s Francis Thornton Green award
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1986:
Virginia Point-to-Point Man of the Year (has also served as Virginia Point-to-Point Association secretary, and Virginia Steeplechase Association secretary and president)
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1980:
Owned and trained the VPPA champion ‘chase mare Royal Greed
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“Will’s known as ‘the mouth of the south,’ and for good reason,” says longtime Casanova huntsman Tommy Lee Jones. “When he started calling races, he really legitimized our point-to-point circuit. Used to be every hunt had their own announcer, usually some poor horse show announcer they’d begged to help out.
“I mean, they were doing their best, but the race calls weren’t exactly Tom Durkin (NBC Sports racecaller since 1984.) Will had heard all the big racetrack (announcers), so he knew how it should sound, plus he worked hard to get it right. It moved us up.”
Mike Hughes helped Dr. O’Keefe in 1979, then, as now, providing between-races details on results and upcoming action as well as commercial spots highlighting sponsors and vendors. “Mike actually has been at this longer, you could say,” O’Keefe jokes.
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After the pair hooked up officially at the 1980 Casanova meet, they soon became coveted by other local clubs, then the sanctioned meets. “Before we knew it, we were doing 20 to 24 races a year," Hughes says.
They make an effective team, but there's a laughably simple reason why they divided the responsibilities that way.
"I talk fast," O'Keefe says. “Mike talks good.
“I could talk slower and never make a mistake and be boring. I think its better to keep people interested.”
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Mike Hughes and Will O'Keefe in 1983 at the Casanova Point to Point. Douglas Lees photo
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How it all started, part 2
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Central Entry Office had a backdoor beginning, too. Before 1983, every hunt club took their own entries, painstakingly recording details, silks, bloodlines – everything – every week. NSA (then NSHA) information wasn’t searchable online since personal computers were still a future concept. The only way to verify past performance was by combing old annuals, and there was no record of point-to-point form at all except some in the weekly Chronicle of the Horse magazine.
Finally, “the secretary for Fairfax, Mario DeFrank, got so frustrated with every hunt having to take all this information, every week, he said we should get
one person to keep all of it on file. I guess that ‘one person’ was me,” O’Keefe explains.
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Will O'Keefe at the International Gold Cup Races in 2019. Douglas Lees photo
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Really, it was pretty straightforward, if labor intensive at first, he adds, to streamline the process as the computer age took hold. O’Keefe spent a lot of time in Chronicle archives to develop verifiable records back as far as 1970, but he made it so that the swelling database auto-updates when he adds horses, horsemen and results each week, and it is an easy-to-use platform for horsemen for overnights and real-time details. The side benefit – checking and confirming unsanctioned race form, mirrors the well-regarded
Irish p2p.ie site.
“It works well,” O’Keefe says, “and I thoroughly enjoy it – keeping the records, calling the races. I call Central Entry ‘my hobby.’
“I've seen some incredible races over the years, and it’s been a great ride. Hard to beat it when you’ve got the best seat in the house at every meet.”
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Behind every successful man …
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Kathleen and Will O'Keefe at a May 2007 Polo event at Morven Park. Douglas Lees photo
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Will O’Keefe’s wife Kathleen O’Keefe started riding when she was 6 months old in a wicker basket saddle. A fourth-generation foxhunter, her father, grandparents and great grandfather were riders, and she grew up riding with her grandmother with the Blue Ridge Hunt in Clarke County, Virginia.
Her father, Peter Drinkwater was a well-regarded Virginia horseman, farm trainer for Raymond Guest. He won the Virginia Field Hunter Championship, something Kathleen repeated in 2000 with her Thoroughbred hunter Lord Hugh.
Kathleen showed ponies as a child and galloped racehorses as a teen. In addition to repeating Drinkwater’s Virginia championship victory, she won the
North American Field Hunter Championship
in 1996, ‘06 and ‘11.
She was named joint-master of the Casanova Hunt in 2017.
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Will O'Keefe with Kathleen's horse at the trailers after the Opening Meet, October 2019 of the Casanova Hunt. Douglas Lees photo
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Bred by Virginia veterinarian Dr. Frank O’Keefe and his Pine Brook Farm, Kauai King was born at Maryland’s
Sagamore Farm
, home to his classic-winning sire Native Dancer. Kauai King’s dam, stakes-producer Sweep In, was at the Maryland farm to be bred back to Globemaster.
A daughter of Blenheim II, Sweep In was 21 when she produced Kauai King in April, 1963.
O’Keefe consigned the bay colt to at Saratoga Yearling the next August, where he was purchased by Tom Gentry on behalf of Nebraskan Mike Ford for $42,000.
Named for one of the Hawaiian islands, Kauai King was stakes-placed at 2 from four starts. He opened his sapping 3-year-old campaign with two allowance wins at Hialeah. He was second in the Hutcheson, won the Fountain of Youth and was fifth in the Florida Derby at Gulfstream in March before heading to Maryland in April. He won the Prince George’s Stakes and Governor’s Gold Cup 10 days later at Bowie.
On the first Saturday in May, Kauai King was sent off as favorite in the 15-horse Kentucky Derby. He led throughout and won by a half-length. (see
video of the 1966 Kentucky Derby
)
The colt was rank in the Belmont and wound up fourth. He ran just once more after the Triple Crown, finishing fifth later in June behind Buckpasser (who set a world record for a mile) in the Arlington Classic. Kauai King had stumbled at the start and pulled up lame from a pulled suspensory.
Kauai King was retired and syndicated for $2.16 million, at the time the second-highest price ever for a stallion. He entered stud at Sagamore.
Kauai King was named Maryland-bred Horse of the Year and champion 3-year-old.
The dark bay stallion stood at Sagamore until exported to England for the 1972 breeding season. He was purchased by Japanese interests in 1974 and spent the remainder of his life in Japan until his 1989 death at age 26.
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Too too:
O’Keefe’s ‘
MOST
’ moments
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MOST memorable slip-up: One race featured Big Bad Boom and Big Boo Boo. “The B's were just too much for me.”
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MOST memorable slip-up, part 2: Same card, different races – Victorian Hill and Victorian Prince. “I kept messing those up.”
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MOST memorable slip-up, part 3: “Runway Romance – say that 10 times in a row. It comes out ‘Wunway Womance’ every time. I was really glad to see him retire."
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MOST memorable slip-up, part 4: “There was a horse named ‘Eylak’ that ran at Casanova one year. I asked (owner) Mimi Abel-Smith how you pronounced it before the race – I figured it was ‘eye-lack.’ She agreed – ‘Well, yes, but at home we call him ‘I-lack-ability’ because he’s sort of difficult.’ And don’t you know it, on race day, that’s just what I called him Eylak Ability. It was pretty bad.”
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MOST favorite announcers’ phrase: “I didn’t mean to, but I guess ‘in hand and in command’ is my trademark.”
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MOST favorite sport (other than horse racing): Rugby. At 5’2”, O’Keefe had entertained thoughts of being a flat jockey when he was younger, but his natural weight was 130-140 pounds, too heavy without reducing.
In high school at Episcopal, he wrestled (130 class), and played lacrosse and football. “You’ll laugh, but I was offensive lineman. I knew it wasn't a career move.”
When he got to the University of Virginia, O’Keefe found his true calling – rugby. He played hooker for the school team that went 24-2 his senior year.
When not playing sports, O’Keefe earned his degree in history, with focus on colonial American history.
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MOST easily viewed (and called) ‘chase course: Glenwood Park in Middleburg, Virginia
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Panorama of Glenwood Park in Middleburg, Va.
Tod Marks
photo
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MOST difficult ‘chase course for viewing (and calling): Montpelier in Orange, Virginia
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MOST favorite race call: “Even today, I still say it was the sixth time Saluter won the Virginia Gold Cup – 1999. I had headphones, and when I said ‘And with a half-mile to run, Saluter’s making his move. Here comes Saluter,’ the crowd truly went nuts. They made so much noise. It was really exciting.”
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MOST favorite race call, part 2: Von Csadek. "An incredible athlete who should have joined the small elite group that won the Hunt Cup and Gold Cup the same year. He was a quarter mile ahead in the Hunt Cup when Patrick (Worrall) came off; so alas he did not win the Hunt Cup that year but avenged that loss in 1992."
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Saluter and Jack Fisher cross the finish line first in their second (of six) Gold Cup wins, in 1995 - setting the course record. Douglas Lees photo.
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1992 Maryland Hunt Cup 13th fence left to right: Cabral (Blythe Miller, up) and eventual winner von Csadek (Patrick Worrall up). Douglas Lees photo
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MOST miles: Unique fast fact – O’Keefe announces all of the nation’s 4-mile timber stakes – the Maryland Hunt Cup in April (he started in 1993, providing the very first live-call for the Hunt Cup’s 100
th anniversary that year), the Virginia Gold Cup in May and the Pennsylvania Hunt Cup in November.
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MOST feared race call: A two-horse field. “In races with 10 or more, you're so busy going through the field that the race goes by quickly.” On the other hand, two-horse races are almost painful, with little to say in a 5-minute race. One time he broke out singing “Camptown Races” over the loudspeaker because the race was almost a non-event.
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MOST favorite silks: “The brighter and more simple they are, the better. I once told Perry Bolton his red and gold Armata silks are wonderful. And I remember Gus Brown years ago rode this horse in these very bright pink silks – Pop’s Cherry. Those were easy to spot.”
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Loud and Clear
(outside the rail, inside the rail)
Amateur owner-rider Michael Hoffman says O'Keefe's commentary comes through loud and clear - on the course as well as around the course.
"The year I won the Maryland Hunt Cup (2001), I was way out in front" though he didn't realize just how far, Hoffman recalls. "I landed after fence 16 and could hear his voice bounce off the tree line -- 'And Michael Hoffman on Solo Lord are in front by many ...'
"I looked over my shoulder and was a full fence ahead (so I) gave Solo a bit of a breather from 16-19 and then picked up the pace coming into 20" before drawing off to win.
Hoffman says his personal favorite O'Keefe-ism is "... and you can throw a blanket over the field."
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Will O'Keefe with the 2001 Maryland Hunt Cup's winning owner/rider, Michael Hoffman and Michael's wife Janell. Photo courtesy of Michael Hoffman.
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