Oaklawn Park gets new track announcer

HOT SPRINGS, Ark.— Oaklawn Park's new track announcer, Vic Stauffer, said Monday that working at Hot Springs' famous racetrack is "an incredible honor" because "you are truly in the big leagues here."

Stauffer, who joked he was running late Monday to speak to Oaklawn Rotary Club at The Hotel Hot Springs & Spa because he was driving back to town after being asked to referee Sunday's Arkansas vs. North Carolina basketball game on the spur of the moment, talked about his career and life in the offseason.

Stauffer began his career at Oaklawn Park on Jan. 13 this year but is no stranger to the world of horse racing. Since beginning his announcing career in 1985 as a backup announcer at Garden State Park in New Jersey, he has called races at Gulfstream Park, Hialeah Park, Hawthorne Race Course, and spent 13 years at Hollywood Park in California. He has also earned two Eclipse Awards for radio and broadcast, The Sentinel-Record reported.

At 14 years old, Stauffer said he knew he would be involved in horse racing in some form, prompting him to end his education in the eighth grade.

"But just because I'm only eighth-grade educated doesn't mean I can't beat you all in 'Jeopardy,'" he said, lightheartedly. "I just knew where I was going to be. The reason I say that is because it's so incredibly important to know when you are blessed, to have the gift that I was given of knowing what you were going to do for the rest of your life when you were 15 years old. That really was a gift from God, to be able to have that direction at such an early age."

When Hollywood Park closed in 2013 after 75 years in business, Stauffer said his "heart was broken," as that particular racetrack was the first one he and his grandfather had visited together when he was just 8 years old.

Stauffer recalled what may have been the scariest moment in his racing career: announcing a race at Hollywood Park during a 4.9-magnitude earthquake. "I thought I was finished," he said.