Down the stretch he comes: Queen's Plate caller Dan Loiselle announces retirement

Oh, that voice.

That smooth as hell baritone, floating effortlessly from the speakers at the top of the Woodbine Racetrack grandstand, in Toronto. The voice that softly envelopes you and some way, somehow, renders the sheer beauty of a thundering stable of racing horses even more fluid, even more impressive, even more epic.

Anyone who's been to a thoroughbred race at Woodbine since 1986, or watched a Queen's Plate unfold on their television screen since that same year, knows that voice.

It belongs to golden-toned race announcer Dan Loiselle, the man who has so majestically called the last 28 Plates that have been contested. He won't call a 29th. Loiselle is leaving the booth, announcing his retirement after what will be 48 years in the sport of kings (and queens, of course).

“I’ve got a great gig," says Loiselle over the phone from his home, just after his retirement was announced. "But we haven’t had a summer holiday in 29 years, because that’s when thoroughbreds race. So, I’m looking forward to a little travelling in the summer and seeing countries with leaves on the trees.”

After all those years and all those races - he estimates he's called 55,000 of them over the course of his career - Loiselle will grace the microphone at Woodbine for the last time next May 31st.

He would never say it, but it is no less true; For over a quarter of a century, he's been as good as the best in the biz. Loiselle would no doubt point out that esteemed announcers Dave Johnson and Tom Durkin, for example, are in a league of their own. But there can be little doubt that that league includes Loiselle, who has called races at Belmont Park and Churchill Downs in addition to his regular duties at Woodbine.

Certainly his voice has been seamlessly woven into the fabric of North America's oldest continuously run stakes race, something of which Loiselle is very proud.

“When they load into the gate for Canada’s race, your heart beats a little faster,” says Loiselle of the Queen's  Plate. “It’s our Kentucky Derby," he continues. "If you’re involved in thoroughbred racing in this country, it’s the race you want to win. It’s the holy grail. It’s the seventh game of the Stanley Cup.”

Hard to imagine, moving forward, a voice other than Loiselle's being attached to The Plate. Over the years, his calm and measured descriptions, as a race entered the backstretch, always seemed to suit the pace, his voice meeting the rhythms of horses' and jockeys' bobbing heads. It's a relaxed tone, keeping you settled until the final turn, when horses accelerate, and Loiselle does too.

That is fully in evidence during my favourite Loiselle call; the 2001 Plate (video below). When things ramp up at about the 2:00 minute mark of this video, it turns to announcing gold, right through the finish line.

That kind of craftsmanship is going to be missed.

“I’m not downplaying my ability, but I think if you can find a spot and be there long enough, you grow on people. You become part of their lives,” says Loiselle, underselling the reasons for his longevity.

He's ready for a graceful exit, insisting that he feels it is time and is determined not to be a hanger on; not to stay past his prime, which seems years away. He is gracious as he gets ready to call it a day.

“I’m 63 years old and I’ve had the best race calling job in the country. It’s time to let somebody else have that opportunity.”

Next June, that somebody else will take up Loiselle's position in the booth. They will have a tall order in winning over race fans that have been used to those molasses-infused tones for nearly three decades. It will take time for that to happen, as it did for Loiselle back in the early days. That's when he stepped behind the microphone to replace Daryl Wells, Sr., a man whose voice had become a living synonym for horse racing, Woodbine and the Queen's Plate. Tough sledding for a then 34 year-old standardbred announcer.

“To me, he was the Wayne Gretzky of race callers," Loiselle says of Wells. "And here was this standardbred punk coming in to replace the legend. I listen back to those calls from 1986, sometimes, and they’re horrible.”

I doubt that, but it is typical for Loiselle to be self-deprecating. He is as well-known in media circles for his firm grasp on humility, easy manner and wicked sense of humour as he is for his voice.

“The way it was put to me at the time was ‘we’re gonna keep your job on the harness end,'" he remembers of his jumping into the deep end back on July 23rd, 1986. "'If you don’t like it, you can go back. If we don’t like you, we’ll send you back.’”

"But it obviously worked out okay.”

With so much equine description passing through his lips over close to half a century maybe it's sensible to expect that Loiselle might not be able to isolate one favourite call. Afer all, when you add it up, it appears he's announced more than a thousand hours worth of races since he first jumped behind a microphone at the age of 17. Run them all together and you'd be listening to Loiselle's race calls for about 44 days straight to get them all in.

“No, I really don’t," says Loiselle, when asked if he does, indeed,  have a favourite. "I’ve been fortunate to call 28 Queen’s Plates and 5 Canadian Triple Crown winners. And Canadian Internationals and Woodbine Miles. But, no. I don’t really have a favourite."

Ask him about favourite horses, though, and he can give you an answer.

“Wise Dan," says Loiselle, of the horse he called to two Woodbine Mile wins. "I loved his name, first of all.”

Asked if the horse was named after him Loiselle quips: “No, that would’ve been ‘Dumb Dan.’"

There have been at least two race horses named after him, though. "Announcer Dan" and "Picture Time." The former is pretty self-explanatory. The latter was taken from one of Loiselle's signature phrases, which he would use in the case of a photo finish.

"I had an old trainer come up to me and say ‘you know what you need to do, kid? You gotta have a hook,'" says Loiselle, recounting his early days as Woodbine's top announcer. 'You gotta have something that they’ll remember you by.’  Loiselle decided to try 'picture time' out and it caught on. He still uses it to this day.

Turns out the Woodbine Entertainment Group will be losing two, not just one, Loiselle next spring. Dan's wife, Wendy, has been employed at Woodbine for 37 years herself. Currently WEG's Senior Manager of Corporate Responsibility, she will be retiring at the same time as her husband. “Her loss will be felt by the company more than mine," says Loiselle. "She’s a special girl, she really is.”

Loiselle says he carries a real sense of satisfaction and gratitude as he looks ahead to taking a bow next May. The script played out just perfectly for him.

“If I could’ve done anything, 25 years ago, for the rest of my life? It’s what I did. I loved it. I’ve been charmed.”

So, too, have horse racing fans.

Dan Loiselle is riding off into the sunset. Who better to call it than the man himself?