Race caller feels right at home in Canterbury | Canterbury Sport | Surfing, Rugby, Soccer, Football, Cricket in Canterbury

Darren Tyquin was a stranger to Canterbury until less than a year ago, but for race fans he's quickly become part of the furniture as successor to the legendary Reon Murtha.

The 40-year-old Victorian had been to the South Island only once before taking over from Murtha last November in and out on the day for the Winter Cup last year.

However, he got a crash tour of the region for his first race calls meetings at Riccarton, Geraldine, and Motukarara on consecutive days.

Both harness and thoroughbred racing put out the red carpet for him and made the transition taking over from Murtha very easy, he said.

Before his move south, Tyquin had been based in Waikato covering meetings for TRAC since coming to New Zealand in 1999. He and his wife Jill had enjoyed holidays in the North Island, and seized the opportunity to move here when a calling vacancy occurred.

However, before that Tyquin had been calling harness, gallops, and greyhound meetings in Australia since 1982.

It was a career he was destined for. His father was a keen punter, and his father's uncle Ned Moss a leading racing personality in Sydney in the 1930s. He started selling race books outside Randwick, became a fearless punter, and then an owner and hotelier. One of his horses was the champion stayer Veilmond, which would have been the top horse of the era if Phar Lap had not been around to regularly beat him to the post.

Growing up around those stories, Tyquin wanted to be a race caller from when he was eight or nine, and on Saturday afternoons in Melbourne as a child would have two or three radios going while he listened to the different broadcasters.

He often skipped school when Sandown, 10min walk from his home, was hosting a meeting. And at school he had a tranny and earpiece stashed in his desk to follow the horses. Tyquin called his first race at the Sandown greyhound track (which was only two streets from home) in 1982 six months after leaving school, and was quickly calling harness racing and the gallops as well.

Like any race caller he's had some interesting moments. At a Tasmanian derby meeting, they'd put up a scaffolding for the commentator, but didn't rope it off and halfway through the race children started shaking it.

"I thought the world was coming to an end," he said but regards himself luckier than a friend who got struck by lightning when he was calling a race at a Victorian country track.

The centralisation of racing in Canterbury with much less travel was a big factor in him taking the job.

"I think the harness racing at Addington is not only the best in New Zealand but the best harness racing in Australasia," he said.

"And talking with people who are experts in Australia that buy and sell for a living, they look for horses that win at Addington. They know that if a horse can win or has good form at Addington, it can win in any state in Australia and become a top liner or be onsold to America or Canada and foot it with the best there."

And having been in thoroughbred racing all his life, it was a wonderful game, he said.

However, he's found calling at Riccarton a challenge. "I think it is the biggest race track in Australasia. The shute and the positioning of the shute and the way the track's laid out, you'll either get the sun up behind or the sun setting or a haze coming over the shute. And it's just one of those difficult tasks where colours seem to merge in and blend together."

He knows now why Auckland caller Keith Haub, filling in at Riccarton, had the 1200m pointed out to him "and said I don't go away that far for my holidays." Smaller animals than horses also have a place in Tyquin's life. He and his wife are the devoted owners of a Scottish fold cat and a Pomeranian, with pups on the way for the latter.