Legendary N.Y. broadcaster Harvey Pack dies at age 94

Harvey Pack, an iconic broadcaster who provided the soundtrack for generations of New York horse-racing fans, died Tuesday at his Manhattan home. He was 94.

His death was reported by Andy Serling, one of Pack’s many friends who was also among his successors as a New York Racing Association TV host and analyst.

“It’s with a very heavy heart that I say my friend Harvey Pack has died,” Serling wrote on Twitter. “He was a great and positive influence on my life, both personally and professionally. He brought a lot of joy to many racing fans as well. May the horse be with him.”

That last line was a tribute to Pack’s familiar television sign-off – “May the horse be with you” – that he used on his nightly TV show that showcased NYRA races. It was also the title of his 2007 autobiography.

“If there were a picture next to the word ‘horseplayer’ in the dictionary, odds are it would be the familiar visage of Harvey Pack,” co-author Peter Thomas Fornatale wrote in the introduction to that book. “In the end it wasn’t the celebrities or racing superstars that Pack connected with best, but the regular racetrack Joe.”

After starting his career writing about television for a newspaper syndicate, Pack went to work in the early ’70s for WNBC Radio in New York, recreating race calls for the first of his shows that would be called “Pack at the Track.”

The year after Secretariat won the 1973 Triple Crown, Pack was hired to begin a 25-year run as NYRA’s director of promotions and special events. In that role he took on jobs that ranged from public handicapper to paddock-club greeter to hosting the nation’s first nightly highlights show on TV.

Whether the program was carried on cable TV outlets like SportsChannel or, starting in 1995, when “Thoroughbred Action” and “Inside Racing” were carried by NYRA on its own dedicated channel, Pack was the seemingly gruff but always good-humored constant.

Pack was also called on by NBC to do handicapping segments with renowned horseplayer and sports writer Pete Axthelm on its national Breeders’ Cup telecasts, starting with the first championships at Hollywood Park in 1984 and continuing for the ensuing decade.

In his local work Pack was teamed with longtime track announcer Tom Durkin and current race caller John Imbriale. He also sat alongside familiar analysts like Frank Wright, Charlsie Cantey, John Veitch, Jan Rushton, Jason Blewitt and Serling until he retired in 1999.

Even after he left NYRA, Pack kept in close touch with racing and its fans. Until 2008 he held court on summer mornings at Siro’s Restaurant on Lincoln Avenue in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., offering in-person handicapping advice with Serling.

“Of all my memories of Harvey, which there are many, I most treasure the times I spent working with him on the Siro’s seminars,” Serling told Horse Racing Nation. “There was not a day when walking over I didn’t know that I would remember those days for the rest of my life.”

In 1986 Pack told the Los Angeles Times that, while he was frugal with his betting, he was born to be a horseplayer.

“My father was a degenerate, and I say that affectionately,” he said. “He went to the track five days a week until he was 87, then cut back to two days a week. I knew then he wouldn’t live much longer. He died at 88.”

A native New Yorker, Pack was with his wife, Joy, staying in touch with sports Monday.

“He loved the Mets,” Serling said, “and he watched the Mets last night.”