Posts Tagged ‘bloodstock research’

By Ray Paulick

There is good news and bad news in this week’s Good News Friday feature, sponsored by Liberation Farm.First, the bad news: Ercel Ellis signed off for the very last time on his “Post Time” radio show last Saturday, Aug. 15. The final broadcast of the nightly Lexington, Ky.-based race results show ended an amazing run of more than 50 years on the air. His folksy and humorous rapid-fire delivery provided a great service enjoyed by generations of horsemen and racing fans, and his love and loyalty to horses bred in the Bluegrass State run as deep as his roots to the Thoroughbred industry.

Now for the good news: Ercel will continue his weekly show, “Horse Tales,” heard each Saturday from 10 a.m. to noon on Lexington’s AM sports radio, ESPN 1300. And the archives of those shows, which feature candid and insightful interviews with some of the Thoroughbred industry’s legendary players, will have a permanent home at the Keeneland Library.

When I first came to Kentucky in 1988, I was introduced to “Post Time” by Mark Simon, my boss at the Thoroughbred Times, and was amazed at how much information Ercel could cram into a 15-minute show. There were results from numerous tracks and stakes from around the country, pedigree information on Kentucky-bred winners and plugs for sponsors smoothly woven in to the “script.” Frankly, I don’t know how he did it.

Back then, getting race results was no simple matter. This was pre-Internet, pre-cell phone, pre-TVG and HRTV. Ercel had a teletype machine rattling off the results via the Associated Press throughout the day, and he had Daily Racing Forms to get pedigree and race information. Without question, he was the fastest and best source to find out who the winners were each day. He was always good for a laugh, too, when he would stumble over some of the horses’ names, putting on, he said, “his best Southern accent and slurring through it.”

Ercel eventually struck a deal with Happy Broadbent at Bloodstock Research Information Services (BRIS) to have the results programmed for him on a computer, making his job a whole lot easier. But the computer couldn’t help him with the pronunciations.

Now 78 years old, Ercel was working for Blood-Horse magazine in the late 1950s when bloodstock agent Art Baumohl asked him to fill in for him on his nightly radio show. “Then Art kind of backed off, and eventually quit altogether,” Ellis said. “That was in 1958 or ’59. I’ve been doing it ever since—until last Saturday.”

Ercel admits to having taken the occasional night off for a dinner out and getting someone to substitute for him. For the most part, though, it’s been seven nights a week, 52 weeks a year, for 50 years. He and wife Jackie haven’t had a vacation since 1982.

“But we love what we do,” he said. “We both are licensed trainers. We’ve got this small farm (in Bourbon County). Never named it. It’s only 22 acres, but we raise our own and race our own.”

Ercel’s father, also named Ercel Ellis, was manager of Dixiana Farm from 1929-64. His late sister, Peg Simpson, worked as a researcher at the Blood-Horse for more than 50 years. It’s obviously a family of stayers.

He worked for the Daily Racing Form from 1968-83, managing the newspaper’s Kentucky bureau and writing the popular “Kentucky Notebook” column. “I hired Logan Bailey, the best thing I ever did,” Ercel said. “He replaced me when I left.”

For the last six years, Ercel has clocked horses in the mornings at the Thoroughbred Center training facility on Paris Pike outside of Lexington. “I can’t believe they pay me to go out there and look at horses every day,” he said.

Times have changed, with TVG, HRTV, online video streaming, web sites and mobile phone platforms providing live racing or instant results. Business has fallen, though “Post Time” was still making money because of loyal advertisers, Ercel said. He and Jackie are taking care of a daughter injured in a riding accident, and they had to make special arrangements any time they wanted to go out for dinner. “I hated to end it, but it was very confining, even though I did the show from home,” he said.

So, last Saturday, without any fanfare, Ercel signed off with his trademark: “Those are the results, and that’s it for ‘Post Time.’” Only this time that really was it. He didn’t mention that it would be his final “Post Time,” remembering how the late Hall of Fame broadcaster Cawood Ledford ended his career calling University of Kentucky basketball without saying it was his final game.

“I’m not comparing myself to Cawood, but I just thought it was the right way to go,” he said, adding, “well, maybe I’ll give myself a gold watch.”

“Horse Tales,” the weekly show Ercel has been doing for eight years now, will continue on AM 1300 in its regular time slot at 10 a.m. Saturdays.

Keeneland president Nick Nicholson, who said he remembers hearing Ercel Ellis on the radio while growing up in Lexington, said the show “might have been the first recollection when I began to understand that Kentucky horses not only won at the local track but all over the country. I remember him reporting on Gulfstream Park, Saratoga, Santa Anita, all the big tracks. To think he’s been doing this for 50 years is amazing, and his voice today sounds just like it did when I was a kid.”

When Nicholson became Keeneland’s sixth president in January of 2000, one of his priorities was to preserve as much Thoroughbred history as possible. “I talked to Ercel some time ago about saving all the interviews and those essays he does each Saturday,” Nicholson said. “I’m happy to say the Keeneland Library will have an Ercel Ellis archive.

“A lot of the people he’s interviewed start out a little shy, because they’re not used to being on the radio, but Ercel brings them out of that, and the next thing you know they’re having a casual conversation. They’re fascinating interviews and I hope future generations will enjoy them.”

“Nick told me people will want to listen to those old tapes 50 years from now,” Ercel said. “I told him I’d like to be around then to listen to ‘em, too.”

(To learn more about Ercel Ellis, visit his web site, www.ercelellis.com.)

 

Liberation Farm celebrates the many horsemen and horsewomen who strive each day to make things better for horses and those who work with them.  To learn more about Liberation Farm, click here.

 

 

Copyright © 2009, The Paulick Report

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