A Saratoga Report Exclusive Book Review
A Life’s Calling: The Voice
Behind the World’s Greatest Horse Races
by Tom Durkin (Author), Paul Volponi (Author), Lenny Shulman (Author)
by William G. Gotimer, Jr.
May 27, 2026
If there is a racing fan in your life, this review will save you significant time. Whether it be a gift for Father’s Day, a birthday, a graduation, a thank you or just for fun, a gift of Tom Durkin’s memoir will brighten the day of any racing fan. The book explores the dedication required to excel in public multiple times each day, the courage required to follow one’s own unique path, and the outsized roles both luck and friendship play in most human endeavors. Mostly, however this book is like sitting around with good friends reminiscing about the great horses who have run in the United States during his 40-year career spanning five decades until his 2014 retirement.
Durkin’s memoir, published by Bloomsbury Academic and available for order or purchase everywhere May 28th, acts as a vehicle to remember where you were; who you were with and which horse you bet during most of the important thoroughbred races run in the United States from 1984 until 2014. Ably assisted in the writing by racing experts Paul Volponi and Lenny Shulman, Durkin invokes memories of racing’s biggest names, equine and human, transporting fans back in time through his binoculared eyes and microphoned words.
On the personal side, the book explores the race caller’s constant desire to please others, first through acting and comedy, then eventually reaching fulfilment in the race calling booth. Storytelling comes naturally to this Irish Catholic son of Chicago, as is evident in the book, but the drama he sought to inject into his race calling does not appear in his recollections. Instead, Durkin expresses humility recalling how his beginnings in the race calling business came about from the brashness of close friends who oversold his abilities to racetrack owners on the fair circuit in the Midwest at the lower quartile of the thoroughbred racing world.
Notably, his beginning in such places allowed him considerably more leeway for creativity than was ever permitted in the staid established New York and other East Coast race tracks. Durkin’s rise from these out-of-the-way places to the pinnacle of the sport both as an on track and television race caller coincided with increased televising of horse racing through network television and, more importantly, the move of racing to a simulcast model where most players watched races on a television screen – with sound. The job of the race caller therefore immediately became far more central to the racing experience than earlier eras and Durkin was there to fully accept the challenge.
While Durkin graciously pays homage to both the race callers that came before him and those who followed him, any fan will tell you that it was Durkin who revolutionized the profession. Among the more surprising revelations in the book is how hard Durkin worked to hone his craft and how driven he was to perform flawlessly. He approached his role as a full participant in the sport and trained his voice and vocabulary like an athlete trains his or her body. He also felt the pressure and is open about how this self-imposed pressure constantly affected his life, both at the track and away from it. Unbeknownst to most, the fear of making a mistake often made his efforts a mental struggle. What is clear is that he always viewed himself as beholden to the hordes of racing fans whom he dramatically thanked when receiving an Eclipse Award of Merit for his lifetime of service by the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 2014.
Durkin is non-controversial by nature (always the entertainer) so do not expect anything other than recollections of horses, racetracks and friends. He leaves the serious issues now facing the thoroughbred industry, and the world, to others.
A book about horse racing would be incomplete if it did not touch upon luck and Durkin counts himself among the luckiest of all horse owners, entertainers and lifestyle aficionados blessed to have carved a path to icon status before retiring at the top of his game to the horse racing heaven of Saratoga Springs, New York.
As far as luck goes – any race fan that receives this as a gift will, in the words of my grandmother when speaking of Saratoga Springs, “be lucky enough.”
Bill Gotimer makes his home in Saratoga Springs with his wife Elise. Both are practicing attorneys and Bill regularly writes articles on horse racing and entertainment.
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