Santa Anita fans trumpet the return of hornblower Cohen

None of the talented thoroughbreds who are versatile enough to run successfully over dirt, turf and synthetic tracks have anything on

Jay Cohen. The 67-year-old Glendora resident can say, “Hold my beer.”

You want multitalented? Consider this: Cohen, Santa Anita’s hornblower since 1987, is master of his own versatility. Local race fans have been listening to his “Call to the Post” for nearly 37 years.

But that’s far from the whole story.

If we had a dollar bill for every time Cohen has made someone laugh at the track with his jokes and puns or been amazed by his magic tricks, we might all be living in

Maui. Dine at the track’s Frontrunner restaurant and you’re liable to see a floor show as entertaining as anything at the Laugh Factory.

Fans who show up at Santa Anita for its 10-race card Saturday will be treated to the return of Cohen, who’s been absent since June because of back problems. He underwent surgery in November and after three months of rehab and riding in the Rose Parade, he’s ready to return and entertain his legion of fans.

“It was terrible,” Cohen said this week of his eight months away. “I’m at the point now where I’m old enough that I can retire if I wanted, but I absolutely cannot stand not performing. It was driving me crazy. It’s pretty weird when you can’t get out there and do what I do. Playing the races kinda gets in the way of the fun a little, except that’s what I’m there for, play for the races. I miss doing the comedy and the magic. I realize that’s become my whole persona.”

Which brings us to another factor that makes Cohen so magical. He’d played “Call to the Post” only five times in his life (during a high school version of “Guys and Dolls”) when he was hired by Santa Anita. He was working as a high school band director in New Jersey when he and his wife of 30-plus years moved to California.

“I had never been to a (race) track until I took the audition for Santa

Anita,” Cohen said. “At the time my wife worked for NBC, they moved us out here and I said, ‘Listen, let me try to be a trumpet player. Let me just see what will happen.’ Within two weeks, I started getting jobs and it was two months later where I was on a job when somebody said, ‘Oh, you’re new in town. There’s an opening at Santa Anita Park for a hornblower.’”

So guess what 10 words begin the book he’s writing? Yep, “There’s an opening at Santa Anita Park for a hornblower.”

“I had two questions,” he said. “What’s a hornblower and what’s Santa Anita Park?”

If there was a positive in Cohen’s time on the shelf, it was that he had time to write eight chapters in his book.

“People might think it’s a book on handicapping and it has nothing to do with that,” he said. “I still have a lot of work to do. It’s almost all finished as far as being written now, but somebody’s gonna have to (edit it).”

It pained (a likely Cohen pun) him that he missed the Breeders’ Cup.

“Three days before the (Santa Anita fall meet), I said, ‘If I’m not able to walk to the end of the street, I’m not going to be able to do it until I get this thing fixed,’” he said. “I made it almost to the neighbor’s house. So that was it. I missed the entire ... I’m going to call it Oak Tree (meet). I don’t care what they call it now.”

He was heartened by the outpouring of affection during his time away.

“I got so many nice letters in the mail, cards, and I had some customers that had my phone number who all kept calling,” Cohen said. “A couple owners who I’ve made friends with, they were all like, ‘Come on, get back here. Get back here.’”

Well, he’s back (there’s those puns again) and healthy as can be. Five neck surgeries since 2006 and the recent back problems notwithstanding, he hopes he’ll be blowing that trumpet on a regular basis for many more races.

He says he’s played “Call to the Post” more than 100,000 times since 1987 and has stopped counting. Maybe now he can start counting the number of people who will be happy to see his return Saturday.