Post Call
Thayer brought Arlington Park owner Joe Joyce to see Kelly play and they signed him up. "I started the '81 meet there in May, and they told me they wanted me all the time", Kelly states with a humorous shrug. "At $100 a day, six-days-a-week back then, well, I couldn't turn it down. I was out of there by 5 pm and didn't play at the club until 9 pm."
Following one too many late nights after the music gig and long days at the track, Kelly got impatient with the traditional call to the post. So rebelliously he added a long jazzy finish one day in June 1981. He didn't care if he got fired. He was miserable, tired and just wanted to go home and sleep. "Thayer called me into his office and said, 'Joyce called asking what the heck was you playing?' "
Kelly tells it. "Joyce liked it and so did the crowd. So instead of firing me, they gave me a $25 raise and told me to jazz it up like that a couple times a day." That is how Kelly's "signature" playing of the call to the post came to be. Since then, he's been entertaining fans with his music and outgoing personality at over 13 tracks throughout the country.
Tom Carey, Jr. hired Kelly to call the horses to the post at Hawthorne in 1986 when they stepped in for Arlington while the big track was rebuilt. Sportsman's Park asked for his services that same year and like Hawthorne, has ever since. He has even performed the past seven years for harness fans on Super Night at Balmoral Park.
Read more about this topic: Joe Kelly (musician)
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