A closing night feature from Daily Racing Form: 

By Mary Rampellini

Canterbury Park announcer Paul Allen has been calling the races in Minnesota for 28 years, and said the season that concludes Saturday night ranks as his most satisfying meet.

Allen has expanded his role in the racing community this season. He is helping out with some of the duties normally performed by Ed Underwood, the track chaplain who is being treated for throat cancer. Allen has been involved with a variety of tasks, from scheduling speakers for the chaplaincy’s summer series program to visiting with horsemen on the backstretch.

“I’m one of multiple people who have pitched in,” he said.  

Allen also has filled a chaplaincy-program role by praying with Canterbury’s jockeys before the races. It’s a common practice between chaplains and riding colonies around the country and has come naturally for Allen, whose hobbies include studying the Bible.

“It is an absolute honor to do it, teaching, preaching, praying in that room,” Allen said. “To be able to connect with those guys has been the greatest professional honor of anything I’ve done in my life.

“When they leave, I’m going to be saddened. It’s a good sad. It’s really been the icing on the cake of the most enjoyable season of my 28 at Canterbury.”

A California start

Allen began calling races 30 years ago. The 56-year-old native of Idaho was first exposed to the sport in his youth, when his parents brought him to track for the Santa Anita Derby. It was the late 1970s, when the family was living in Los Angeles.

“There were like 60,000 people there,” Allen recalled. “I completely started following racing.”

In time, Allen had the opportunity to write about the sport for the Pasadena Star-News.

“I met Trevor Denman through that,” he said of the announcer based in Southern California. “Eventually I ended up on the roof at Santa Anita, and in the grandstand on weekends at Hollywood Park, calling 500 to 700 races into a tap recorder.”

Allen landed his first announcer job at the Bay Meadows fair in 1993. He said he was hired by Bay Meadows president Jack Liebau and said his mentor was James Ough.

It would be the start of a career that brought Allen to Canterbury Park. He was recruited by David Miller and Sheila Williams, said track spokesman Jeff Maday. Allen has since been inducted into the Canterbury Park Hall of Fame.

Allen’s work in Minnesota has grown to include a sports talk show on the radio station KFAN. He’s been in the position 25 years. Maday said the show grew in popularity when it was moved to a prime morning spot vacated by Jesse Ventura, the famed wrestler who ran for, and won, the race for governor of Minnesota.

Allen is in his 21st year as an on air “play by play guy” for the Minnesota Vikings. He said his NFL mentor is Kevin Harlan. Allen said racing sometimes crosses over into his work with the Vikings.

“I had a bevy of things in race calls that nobody was using in the NFL,” Allen said. “For instance, at Canterbury when a horse opens up at the top of the lane I used to say, ‘And he’s loose!’ When Adrian Peterson would bust through the line I would say, ‘And he’s loose,’ and the fan base in Minnesota, they really liked it.

“I would say I’ve taken three, four, five staples used in racetrack announcing and put them into the NFL. My cohorts liked it, because it was fresh and new.”

Creative calls

As the Canterbury season comes to a close, the football season is getting into high gear for Allen. He has very clearly been savoring the final stretch of the meet at Canterbury.

Last weekend during the Minnesota Festival of Champions card, Allen was on top of his game. His colorful race calling added to the meet’s biggest night for Minnesota-breds.

In the Distaff Sprint, Allen highlighted the fast start by Star of the North.

“Star of the North like a shot, shoots out of the gate and with a killer crossover gets down to the inside. And Star of the North leads it by three…”

Later in the race, Allen had fun with the advancing, eventual winner, Charlie’s Penny.

“Charlie’s Penny looks like a million bucks…”

He went on to call the filly a “gray blur” as she jetted home in front in the Distaff Sprint.

Earlier on the card, It’s Bobs Business overcame a difficult start to circle the field for a clear win in the Northern Lights Futurity. Allen became animated as the horse came off the turn.

“It’s Bobs Business circumnavigating like a champion. What a move that was! It’s Bob Business, from the outhouse to the penthouse!”

Allen said the card produced what he would call his favorite race this meet. It was the Sprint Championship won by Love the Nest, who charged from off the pace. Allen said as part of his work with the chaplaincy he spent time at the barn this meet with the horse’s trainer, Joel Berndt, and subsequently, Love the Nest.  

“I got really close with Joel Berndt,” Allen said. “I was around the barn more than I’d ever been. Love the Nest is just a picture of beauty. I fell in love with the horse. I really, really got into the call. He won by several lengths. That’s going to be one I remember for a long time.”

The same can be said for Allen’s 2022 meet at Canterbury.  

(Photo of Allen, on far right, is courtesy of the announcer.)