Salive decides to sign off from Fort Erie track
Announcer had been voice of horse racing at border oval since 2015
The voice of racing at Fort Erie Race Track has hung up his microphone.
Frank Salive, who has been calling races at the border oval since 2015, called his final race on Oct. 28, when the 2021 season came to an early finish after constant rain shorted the program to just four races.
The Leamington, Ont., native began his career as a track announcer in 1990 at Woodbine Raceway. Before finally landing in Fort Erie, he also worked the microphone at several standardbred and thoroughbred tracks on both sides of the border with stops at Western Fair Raceway in London, Ont., and Pompano Park in Florida. It is a career that saw him call close to 200,000 races.
There’s a trick to calling races, he said.
“You really don’t know how your body and mind are going to react, but it’s kind of counterintuitive to the crowd,” he said. “The crowd is excited, and they are all cheering, and you have to be exactly the opposite. So, it’s different than being in the crowd as a race fan; you have to go the opposite direction and stay calm.”
He cited a pair of legendary announcers as being a big influence on his career. “I would say Stan Bergstein was a foundation announcer that I really patterned myself after for harness racing,” Salive said. “Certainly, Dan Loiselle (thoroughbred racing) helped me a lot in my years at Woodbine. I went a lot by his example to transform a race from just the look of horses going on an oval into a little bit of a story.”
His Fort Erie tenure also provided him with some high-profile races, most notably the second jewel of the Canadian Triple Crown of thoroughbred racing, the Prince of Wales Stakes.
“I came from a strong standardbred past so I got to cross over and do six of the Canadian Triple Crown races (in Fort Erie).”
Drew Cady, general manager for the Fort Erie Live Racing Consortium that operates the track, said Salive had become synonymous with racing at the border oval during his time in Fort Erie.
“He has a distinct voice and a great personality that added to the atmosphere at the track,” Cady said. “He will be greatly missed by the team as well as the racing fans.”
Salive wasn’t always involved with horse racing.
In the mid-1970s, he was a goalie for the Peterborough Petes of the OHL before he took on a career as a sports broadcaster for several outlets including the CBC, CTV and TSN.
While he was with the CBC, his first assignment for the network was a part of its coverage of the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal.