Missing Luke; Big Shoes To Fill

This year’s Fall Meet at Churchill Downs just won’t be the same without our good friend Luke Kruytbosch, who eloquently described the local racing action from 1999 until his untimely death in mid-July.

Instead, five talented guest announcers will take one-week turns behind the mic until Luke’s permanent replacement is named sometime before year’s end: Calder’s Bobby Neuman (Oct. 26-Nov. 2); Louisiana Downs’ Travis Stone (Nov. 5-9); Golden Gate’s Michael Wrona (Nov. 11-16); Gulfstream Park, Monmouth Park and Suffolk Downs’ Larry Collmus (Nov. 19-23); and England’s Mark Johnson (Nov. 26-29).

Each guest announcer has their own distinct style and is a great sample of the many talented candidates who applied to fill the vacancy. One is almost certain to emerge as the next “Voice of the Kentucky Derby” and only the sixth announcer in Churchill Downs’ 134-year history.

The next track announcer will have big shoes to fill. Luke wasn’t just a talented racecaller; he was a genuine class-act who was universally loved by anyone he met.

He always reminded me of the character Norm from the hit ’80s comedy Cheers. Luke was this imposing, big teddy bear who would walk into a room with that contagious smile and hearty laugh, and everyone would know his name. He had that ability to instantaneously make everyone feel just a little bit better.

Perhaps no one knew that better than his good friend Marty McGee of Daily Racing Form.

Marty recently penned a piece for the National Turf Writers Association annual awards program, held Oct. 23 in Pasadena, Calif., after Luke was posthumously honored with the “Mr. Fitz Award” which honors individuals “typifying the spirit of racing.”

Marty wrote a moving piece that came straight from the heart, and, with his permission, the powerful tribute is reprinted below.

It’s only fitting that it’ll take five men to replace Luke this fall. Luke was that good. And Luke was that loved.

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By Marty McGee

The late turf writer Jack Mann didn’t like to be taken for a fool. If an obituary took too many liberties in praising someone who had passed away, Mann would set the record straight.

“A son of a b. who dies,” Mann would say, “is a dead son of a b.”

This admonishment comes to mind because countless posthumous accolades followed the death of Luke Kruytbosch – and not a single soul can reasonably argue that they were undeserved. In fact, the membership of the National Turf Writers Association thought so highly of Kruytbosch that they have voted him the winner of the 2008 Mr. Fitz Award, given annually to someone for “typifying the spirit of racing.”

Racing is often recognized not only as a sport that showcases its majestic horses, but also its lovable characters. “Sunny Jim” Fitzsimmons was a record-setting trainer whose charismatic persona gave him the “Mr. Fitz” legacy. For sure, Luke would be honored beyond words to know that he has been voted the Mr. Fitz Award and is following previous honorees such as Laffit Pincay Jr., Joe Hirsch, Pat Day and Team Barbaro, all of whom he deeply admired.

Kruytbosch, who died unexpectedly July 14 at age 47 of an apparent heart attack in Evansville, Ind., was known throughout the Thoroughbred racing industry as a first-class race-caller, someone who had developed a winning style and sound all his own. With a rich and unobtrusive baritone that resonated through the grandstand and clubhouse, Kruytbosch had an uncanny ability to put the race right before you, to virtually put you on a horse’s back. It was, as a Daily Racing Form headline somberly proclaimed following his death, “A voice that drew you close.”

But it was outside the announcer’s booth that Luke earned his proverbial stripes with fans, horsemen, co-workers, and others. Partly because race-calling had taken him to so many different places in North America, but mostly because of a personality perhaps best described as engaging and non-threatening, Luke endeared himself to hundreds, if not thousands, of people who justifiably called him their friend.

Add in the untold number of people who, in more vicarious ways, got to know him through his race-calling, and it is not difficult to understand why Luke Kruytbosch was so loved by so many.

Luke liked to remind me that we first met at Pimlico in the late 1980s, when he was living in Virginia, trying to break into racing as an announcer, and I was a cub reporter with the Baltimore Sun. But the first time we really started hanging together was in 1999, when he moved to the Kentucky circuit to call races at Churchill Downs and Ellis Park. Some of my fondest memories of our times together were formed on the Wednesday nights before the Gardenia Stakes at Ellis, when I would stay in the same apartment where he died, above the Roc-a-Bar pizza joint in Evansville. We’d usually stay up late, talking about our life experiences, many of them, of course, involving racing.

From those conversations, and from all the other times I spent with him, in and out of press boxes, I found Luke to be a man of integrity, dedication, talent, and humor. He was a fun guy, someone who automatically lent an upbeat mood to the proceedings, a witty, gregarious, hail-fellow-well-met. His pool of friends was drawn from, among others, owners, trainers, agents, racing officials, writers, fans, and fellow announcers. He was a man’s man, but he also had a way with ladies and children and the constant stream of acquaintances and curiosity-seekers who would find their way to his booth, where they rarely walked away without a “Wow! How do you do that?!”

Luke really enjoyed sports, foremost among them the game of horseracing, of which he never seemed to get enough. The story about him going to River Downs the day after he called his first Kentucky Derby in 1999? True. The number of times he drove to River, gratis, just to be on “The Regular Guy” show? A lot. The evenings he stuck around for simulcasting after he had called a full program? Pretty much all the time. The annual trip to Saratoga, somehow squeezed in during dark days at Ellis? Wouldn’t miss it. When he turned on his television? TVG, of course. The spirit of racing, hard-core and unsolicited? Luke, pure and simple.

Luke knew that his nomadic lifestyle – during his final years, he mostly split his time by moving several times per year between the Kentucky circuit and Turf Paradise in Phoenix – did not lend itself to settling down with a wife and kids. Still, he figured that the right time and circumstances would someday allow him to have the best of both worlds. One of the most pointed moments at Luke’s memorial service at Churchill came when his father spoke wistfully about how his son had been unable to give him a grandchild. Luke would have made a great dad, yet one of the most unfortunate aspects of his death is that he never got a chance to prove it.

At the end of the 1967 movie “Cool Hand Luke,” the George Kennedy character, Dragline, mourns the death of his dear friend, Luke Jackson, played by Paul Newman. “Awww, Luke,” overtones a grieving Dragline, as a video montage of a smiling Luke plays on the screen. “Good ol’ Luke.”

For the many friends of Luke Kruytbosch, there is a similar bittersweet feeling: We know Luke had a good life and carved out a special niche for himself, and yet there always will be deep regret that the ending seemed so unnecessary, so tragic. It is just so sad to think that, one day, after he had retired and lived a fuller life, he might have been accepting the Mr. Fitz Award on his own behalf.

His voice will live forever, through Derby archives and elsewhere, but for those who knew him, that is not nearly enough. He was, after all, a man who drew you close.