What's a Nice Announcer Like You Doing in a Place Like This?

The race is worth just £2,800 and even the best horses in the field would be hard pressed to win at the worst racetracks in the U.K. or France. But as the field lines up behind the tape (there is no starting gate) for the opening race on the card at Les Landes and heads on its way announcer Mark Johnson begins a call that is crisp, accurate and exciting. He is bubbling with enthusiasm, and it's all completely genuine.

Mark Johnson was the regular announcer at Churchill Downs and called five Kentucky Derbies and here he is at the opposite end of the racing spectrum, calling races at a place few have ever heard of. Just don't feel sorry for him.

“I'm very much in my element here and everything I do here is every bit as enjoyable as calling anywhere,” the 50-year-old resident of London said.

Johnson was a regular race caller in the UK when he beat out four others who auditioned for the Churchill announcing job after the death of Luke Kruytbosch in 2008.

“I thought I was 100-1 in a five-horse race to get the job and I wouldn't have backed me,” he said.

He called his first Derby in 2009 but was not rehired by Churchill following the conclusion of the 2013 racing season.

“It's obviously sad when something like that comes to an end,” he said. “Contractually, we knew things might have to move on. We parted on an amicable note. I will say I'd be saddened if someone said you'll never ever call another race underneath the twin spires. I'd love to be able to pop in and call another race there some day.”

His job at Les Landes does not define the newest chapter in Johnson's career. Upon returning to the U.K., he reestablished his place as one of the country's top announcers and has called races like the GI Epsom Derby, the GI St. Leger and the Grand National numerous times.

“I've called at 59 of the 60 racetracks in the UK,” he said. “You have binoculars and you travel. It's completely opposite from how they do it in the United Sates. You're always on the road. There are about 20 racetrack announcers and they tell each one of us, you go here, you go there. The only thing predictable is the track that is furthest from where you live is usually where they send you.”

Since Jersey is only loosely affiliated with the U.K., it has to find its own announcers and Johnson does everything he can to plan his schedule around making the nine race meetings at Les Landes, plus the one meeting at the nearby island of Guernsey. To him, there is something very special about this place.

“I wanted to be a racetrack announcer since I was about three years old,” he said. “I did everything I could to become a track announcer and it was very difficult. I went away to university and got my degree. While I was at university I tried to do little point to point meetings and I called some Arabian racing. I heard about racing in Jersey and the Channel Islands and I wrote them and said, 'I'm a commentator and would you give me a go?' I came over in '86 during the summer of my second year in university. I came over on (Jersey) Derby Day and the resident track announcer let me do the last two races on the card and I've been coming back ever since.

“That's always been part of the joy and love of calling for me, calling the small meets. At a place like this the people are here purely for the racing. I've always got a tremendous thrill from that kind of racing ever since I was a kid and my mother and father would take me to small tracks, in American terms, fair type tracks.”

Though Johnson is at the top of his profession in the UK, he still has the bug for American racing and says he wants to come back.

“I might as well say it, I really would like another full-time announcing job at a racetrack in the U.S.” he said. “I would absolutely love to do that. I love the way in the U.S. you get a chance to be the voice of a racetrack, something you can't do over here. I desperately crave to call again in States.”

He's been perched between the Twin Spires, his voice heard by 150,000, 160,000 people as he calls the most famous horse race in America, if not the world. He's been the voice of races won by Orb (Malibu Moon), Wise Dan (Wiseman's Ferry), I'll Have Another (Flower Alley), Commentator (Distorted Humor) and Animal Kingdom (Leroidesanimaux {Brz}).

At Les Landes, they put up some scaffolding for Johnson to stand on so he can look over the heads of the 1,000 or so in attendance. On this night the featured flat race is worth £2800 and it is won by Mr Opulence (GB) (Generous {Ire}), a horse who came to the island after losing his first six starts in the U.K. by combined margin of 233 3/4 lengths.

He's had the ying and the yang. He likes both.