Kentucky Derby Caller Quits, Too Much Pressure

Thursday, 28 April 2011 | by Pat's Picks

It’s known as the Greatest Two Minutes in Sports, but for Tom Durkin, it’s two minutes too long. The New York Times says Durkin, who has called the Kentucky Derby 13 times, declined to sign his contract with NBC this year because the job has given him “debilitating anxiety.” One of the most famous voices in racing, Durkin says the job is “mentally taxing” because it requires not only remembering and identifying 20 horses as they fly around a racetrack but the ability to “conjure an accurate and evocative word picture for the chaos that is 20 horses thundering around an oval for a mile and a quarter.”

The New York Daily News broke the Durkin story yesterday.

Here’s Durkin calling the 2010 Derby: