2:31#

It’s October 31, 1992, and Tom Hammond is talking to the world on NBC, his suited torso jolting with the anticipation of money and words: $10 million in purses, numerous divisional championships, and the horse of the year title – leaning into the red foam cover of the mic, a hot day for both horses and fans; this day, Tom Hammond allows himself a prophecy – though we know announcers are taught to remain unbiased, to remain neutral, we will give Tom Hammond a pass today, since it is hot out, since it is October 31, 1992, and hurricane Andrew has not destroyed us, the viewers, here, focusing our attention together at Gulfstream Park, the race track which was not destroyed, which is in beautiful condition, Hammond tells us, the park which stands and laughs like a man who knows he could’ve been destroyed, maybe should’ve been destroyed, but wasn’t, and so he laughs almost without having anything else to say – Tom Hammond, who we should say is a poet, who we should say is a man of words, a man who has read the classics, who knows how to pull words out of dark places, Tom Hammond who has to have read Dante, who must be aware that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a time of moral crisis preserve their neutrality, Tom Hammond who must understand that he cannot sit idly by without making at least one prediction, one little hint, just a joke, just to get a laugh, give the viewers a little bit of levity, a little bit of lift, today, Tom Hammond allows himself this prophecy, before the NBC broadcast switches away from his opening mouth, the slight twinkle in his eye, the line he must have planned in the car, in the mirror, walking around his nice neighborhood (we can say Tom Hammond doesn’t live in a bad neighborhood (we can say Tom Hammond might even be given to speculation, to commentary on which neighborhoods are bad and which neighborhoods are good), Tom Hammond gives himself this brief moment of fun, almost a smile, almost a feeling, floats just above the word and, and since it is Halloween, he says, no doubt, he warns, some unexpected occurrences before the day is over, and NBC blurs his white face into a flash of dollar signs.

7:54#

It’s time for introductions. The trumpet has sounded, the trainers are pulling their horses onto the track. #1 is Mr. Brooks. He trained in England, he won in France, he’s ridden by maybe the greatest jockey of all time, Lester Piggott, the grandpa, he’ll be 57 next month, the same age as my dad, and NBC has procured a photograph of his smiling pink face, looking to the side, down his nose which has caught the light and is bright white, his skin wrinkled into kindness, into eyes that witness, eyes that look into eyes and do not need to speak words, eyes that know, that commune, his photograph set in the top left of the screen, next to his real body moving up and down with the steps of Mr. Brooks, a dark brown horse who is walking toward the camera, a strip of white hair down his nose, today, in the heat, you know, a packed house full of white people watching, and Tom Hammond is having fun, he’s using similes to provide literary and cultural context, since we should know that Mr. Brooks beats the opposition like a drum, that his trainer was formerly a drummer in the rock group, The Troggs, you know, Wild Thing, he says, you know, Mr. Brooks, whose father’s name was Blazing Saddles, who was named for that movie’s star, Mel Brooks, who, according to the Wikipedia article that I am reading at 11:19 PM January 6, 2025, “was a small sickly boy who often was bullied and teased by his classmates because of his size,” Mel Brooks, who is 98 and is now making me think about how that white 5th grader took my bike and rode it around the playground calling me Shrimpy! Shrimpy! Shrimpy! that mint green bike which I loved, not in spite of but because of its smallness, the way it could weave in and out of driveways outside the not very packed house where I lived, all that space, all that property, all that free room to roam.

A Brief Pause for Wild Thing by The Troggs#

Three white men in white pinstripe suits stand in front of the camera. The one in the middle, with the microphone, sings Wild thing, you make my heart sing, as a blonde, white woman in a zig-zag striped dress walks past him through a door into a train station. He checks her out and then follows her through the door, followed by the bass player, the guitarist, and the camera person. Inside the train station, the girl is gone. Another white man in a white pinstripe suit is sitting at the drum set, surrounded by a crowd of white people dressed in black coats. Some of them are boarding or exiting the train. The four men in suits begin playing their instruments for the crowd. There’s a blonde girl in a white coat behind the guitarist. The crowd stares at the band. They do not dance or sing. They do not move. The train starts to move. The band members twist their feet and knees. The camera shoots the band members from below, getting close ups of their faces smiling and singing. The crowd is not smiling. The singer turns around and looks at the camera, Wild thing, I think you move me, then a close up of his face in pain, but I wanna know for sure. Another train arrives. One person in the crowd starts to smile. Nobody moves. The bassist puts his tongue under his lower lip. An officer walks between the train and the crowd.

18:41#

Horses are running as people cling to their backs as Tom Hammond’s voice skips an octave, returns, his voice held out to the end of itself, stretching, opening for the quickest of gasps between names in front, names behind, names coming flaunting her speed! names like drum beats like footsteps like thunder, Tom Hammond is doing what he likes to do, what he is good at doing, he’s lost himself now, fully present, fully attuned, his words rising to the surface without thought or organization or order, this is reporting, documentation, this is a wild thing he’s doing just trying to put words to what he is witnessing at the speed with which it is witnessed, an impossible task, this one minute and eight seconds, Tom Hammond, pressing his face up to what cannot be done, what cannot be spoken, he looks at the horses blurring past palm trees past people past fence poles the horses running the jockeys leaning catching up somehow finding another gear, surges! Tom Hammond’s voice becomes a voice-over somehow finding a second voice which was behind the first voice, a second voice which came almost out of nowhere, a voice that rides a second wind from nowhere surging to victory by a neck! as NBC cuts away from the finish line to a spot on the track where a white man in a suit is running frantically onto the dirt –

19:32#

And the broadcast does not stop when the horse goes down. The broadcast does not stop when the horse is on the track. The broadcast does not stop when the jockey is pinned beneath him. Tom Hammond announces the event the way he announces the event. Tom Hammond is doing a job. Tom Hammond is talking about bodies in movement. Standard procedure. The broadcast does not cut away when the veterinarians and medical workers, most of them white, rush to the scene. The white camera men rush to the scene. The white camera men carry massive cameras up to the group of doctors huddled around the 57 year old jockey and the horse. The cameras provide the viewers a close up of the medical care. The cameras look over the shoulders of the doctors to the jockey immobilized, his face smeared with dirt and blood. I look through the lens of white men at the horse who is kicking in pain. And Tom Hammond is commenting on the replay, commenting on the fall in slow motion, the snap in the leg. He looks for a story to tell about people overcoming and sees the jockey, maybe the greatest of them all, steering the horse away from other horses and riders, trying to protect them, trying to save them, trying to stay alive, as they collapse together in the dirt. The broadcast does not stop when the ambulance arrives. The cameramen walk beside the medics. Tom Hammond says he’s being loaded onto the ambulance. Standard procedure to immobilize a rider who has been injured. They load him in. The procedure continues. The procedure does not cut away when the medics place a blue tarp between the cameras and the horse. The procedure returns to the wide lens. Tom Hammond speculates on what he can’t see. What is happening behind the blue tarp. He reaches for language, poetry. This is an award-winning performance. This is what sells. This is tragic. This is a great race, marred. Mar, which Google tells me means “impair the appearance of; disfigure,” which Google says is not to be confused with what it refers to as its opposite: enhance, the way the cameras zoom in on the event, the scene, the set, the story, the thing to be watched. Tom Hammond’s job is to continue talking about the movement of bodies, to keep the viewers engaged enough to look without wanting to turn away. He says the horse is being humanely destroyed. He says it’s a routine procedure to prevent the horse from suffering. He does not explain that the horse cannot die. That he cannot legally say they are killing the horse. Tom Hammond does not explain how language is legislated, controlled. He does not find it necessary to explain that once something is considered property, it is no longer considered alive. That once something is considered property it cannot be killed, it can only be destroyed.