Punters should listen closely to Darren Flindell's race calls
Those racegoers who regularly listen to Sydney’s metro caller, Darren Flindell, have probably come to know he likes to play with horse names during his call.
I say probably because I think in the heat of the call most listeners simply miss his quirky, clever, Darrenisms. Which is a shame because he is quite often very clever.
They are subtle at times, but listen closely to his calls.
For an example, a few weeks back he said of HOLYFIELD as he swung for home in front, “Holyfield’s having his ears ridden off him,” a reference to the great former heavyweight boxing champion of the world Evander Holyfield.
During one of his bouts with Mike Tyson, a portion of Holyfield’s ear was bitten off.
And it’s this sort of thing that has been going on for a couple of years now with a growing number of his race calls.
But on Saturday, I think I heard his best. And it would have been missed by many, perhaps all, who were listening in.
It was nearing the end of the Gr 1 Doncaster Mile. Darren screamed with 50m to go, “Hear comes Nettoyer. She swoops on them out wide, and Nettoyer cleans them up in the Doncaster.”
Simple enough, so, what am I missing you ask?
Well, I doubt Darren knows French.
But what he does know is how to do his research and he deserves great props for that.
The word nettoya in French means ….. cleaned. The word nettoyer means, to clean.
So, when he calls out loud, Nettoyer cleans them up in the Doncaster, you now see the cleverness of his double entendre.
It’s become a bit of a hallmark of his. Darren does call differently to most in his profession. He actually looks at the name and reacts to it.
Another one of his recent gems involved the Bjorn Baker-trained Irukandji who was well backed one day at Rosehill and weakened out of it to run near enough to last.
“Irukandji, well he stung punters today with that effort.”
Sounds innocuous enough, right. But another double entendre…..and well researched. Irukandji is a poisonous jellyfish, noted for bringing on vomiting and cardiac arrest after it stings you!
Former American race caller, now retired Tommy Durkin, would also play with names. One of his most famous was calling a horse named DOREYMEFARSOLATEEDOE.
As it stormed to the front half way down the running one day, Durkin started singing the famous old song.
The Darrenisms, as I’ve dubbed them, that we are hearing nearly every Saturday afternoon are often lost on listeners, and they certainly are under-appreciated. So I beseech you to listen out for them.
This one with the beer-guzzling, pizza-eating Nettoya, was a good one, @hkdarren!
