Thursday Thoughts with Jason Beem June 11, 2026

A good Thursday morning to you all! Hope everyone had a good week as things settle in post Belmont Stakes (G1) and the summer season is almost upon us. I’ll be shipping up to Colonial Downs this weekend and am looking forward to kicking off our eighth season since the reopening in 2019. It’s the longest season we’ve had since then with 45 days of racing over 11 weeks up until Labor Day. We’ll certainly talk about it a fair bit on the blog here as we get closer to opening day on June 25. 

I wanted to write today about my visit to Gulfstream Park to fill-in in the announcer’s booth last weekend. There was a little bit of announcer merry-go-round as Frank Mirahmadi went up to call the Belmont at Saratoga. So that took regular Gulfstream caller Peter Aiello over to Santa Anita, and I was brought down to call Gulfstream for Pete.

So a little background on me filling in for Pete, because I was fortunate to get to do it back in 2018 and 2019 when he would take his vacations in November. Back then, that time of year they were running at what was called Gulfstream Park West. It was the track where Calder Race Course was, only the grandstand was gone, so we worked in three construction trailers that were stacked on top of one another. To say it was a unique racecalling experience would be an understatement. 

But it was a career-changing experience for me. After that first fill-in in 2018, within a few months, I had been offered and accepted the fill-in gig at Monmouth Park and the full-time gig at Colonial Downs for its reopening in 2019. That 2018 visit to South Florida truly was one of the most memorable trips in my life. I wrote about it in much more detail at the blog below. 

Going back this time I was really trying to remember that first visit and focus on the gratitude for not only this opportunity, but for those opportunities back in 2018 and 2019. I was excited to go to the same restaurants I did back then, stay at the same hotel and go swimming in the pool at night, and maybe sneak over to Pompano Park like I did in 2018 and 2019. But as is in the case in life, nothing stays the same. First of all the Flashback Diner, where I had breakfast every morning before the races at Gulfstream Park West, was closed for renovations. And Pompano Park is just a casino and driving range now and the racetrack or any physical remnants of it are also gone. So I didn’t make the drive. 

Even calling the races felt different, albeit in a much better way. In 2018 I was so nervous. This time, even though it was my first time calling at actual Gulfstream Park, I wasn’t really nervous at all. There were some challenges because of some visual obstacles like the infield TV board and the one mile chute being blocked by some portable barns, but basically it was just like calling anywhere else. Just the backdrop is a little different. But whether it’s Gulfstream Park or Colonial or Grants Pass Downs, once you’re looking through binoculars, it’s just silks and names. 

I’ve been wrestling with that idea lately of how nothing stays the same. I was talking to some older racetrackers while at Gulfstream and they lamented a lot about ‘the good ol’ days.’ People in racing do that a lot and I’ve certainly been guilty of it myself. I think people do it in all areas of life. Nostalgia and memories are powerful things. So is youth. Racing will never be what it was in the 1980s or 1990s, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be great. It will be different because everything is different. Cell phones, computers, HISA, legalized gambling of all kinds, it’s all so different from a landscape and cultural perspective. Racing has changed and will have to continue to change as time goes on. Nothing ever returns to what it was. Hollywood focuses so much now on making sequels of old favorites, because they know it means money. But usually it isn’t really good art. It isn’t interesting and mostly just serves to excite people about old times and memories. There’s nothing inherently wrong about that, but I think it avoids looking to the future and growing in new ways. 

That last part is something I’ve been struggling with and I know racing sometimes struggles with. How do we grow in new ways to be better in the future? There’s smarter people than me tasked with those decisions, but I know that the next five years will look different than the last five and they need to. Change is inevitable. Here’s hoping it’s for the positive! 

Have a great weekend everyone!