IT'S NO STRETCH: DURKIN COLORS CALL LIKE RAINBOW.

Byline: TOM HOFFARTH Media

It's only Wednesday afternoon, and Tom Durkin's downtown Pasadena hotel room already is one big technicolor mess.

Stacks of different-colored 5-by-7 index cards are strewn across a table by the TV set, near the past-performance printouts that sit underneath his reading glasses. A briefcase opened on his bed has more color-coded folders. A suitcase off to the side is opened, so he can get to his colored marking pens.

On the nightstand is a Walkman loaded up with a self-hypnosis tape.

``That's supposed to help keep me calm and not get distracted,'' he said.

No wonder.

NBC's highly regarded race caller for the 20th Breeders' Cup telecast Saturday from Santa Anita only has to memorize the names and colors of about 90 horses and their corresponding jockeys. But like any experienced horseman, Durkin has his system to make heads or tails out of anything thrown at him.

Before flying out from New York, he already poured through about 300 videotapes and DVDs of horses in past races. Months ago, he began the process of going through the Internet, newspapers and other publications to track down more stories on the participants and stow them away.

He's taken each race and broken it down, drawing columns to separate the horses that like to break early from those who follow close to the pace, stay in the middle and tend to trail, so he can get an idea how it should play out.

He has sheets of notes with plot lines and subplots for each race, and lists of words he pores over as a mental exercise - adjectives like ``mysterious,'' ``exuberant,'' ``noble'' and ``roughish'' - that he files into his subconscious, hoping to draw upon them in the heat of the battle to punctuate his description.

And all the while, he realizes there's a strong chance none of it will matter.

``I think about 99 percent of this stuff never makes it into a call,'' Durkin says with a laugh as he takes a bite out of a chocolate nutrition bar. ``But if you can find the right word to use at the right time, it can say lot.''

In his approach, starting gate numbers definitely don't matter. A horse can get obscured behind a tree or another horse in a far turn. Colors are the only reliable means to identify the participants. But even that isn't a simple solution.

Flipping through the cards of the dozen entrants for the Filly and Mare Turf race, Durkin notes that four horses all have silks in some variation of blue, and a fifth has blue and green.

``They're almost identical,'' he says. ``It'd be very easy to make a mistake.''

But Durkin doesn't - especially in events of this magnitude. The Breeders' Cup has been his signature event for NBC, and the network knows it has another voice on the program capable of relaying important information.

``Normally a race caller is a race caller, but he's so knowledgeable he brings a sense of reality to the drama,'' Breeders' Cup producer David Michaels said. ``He spends so much time preparing and runs over every scenario that it sounds natural when he throws things into the call.''

In the half-hour or so he'll have before each race on Saturday's card, Durkin will pull out folders one last time and go over his notes, trying to make each call as fresh as the previous and as pertinent to the viewers and those in the stands who also hear the call.

``It all boils down to describing the race appropriately and accurately and not make it sound like any other race,'' Durkin said. ``You just have to rely on your judgment and convey it. When someone views your call 10 or 15 years down the road, you want to make it right.''

And, if possible, add a little color.

--Who's out there: From a programmer's perspective, selling the Breeders' Cup as a five-hour block party to viewers who otherwise are drawn to the array of college football on competing channels is somewhat futile.

The 2.0 national rating and 5 share for the Breeders' Cup a year ago sound miniscule, but it was actually the highest-rated series telecast since '98 (2.2/6) and up 18 percent over 2001.

This year's 10 a.m.-to-3 p.m. West Coast window overlaps with a half-dozen college football telecasts, including USC at Washington on KABC Channel 7 at 12:30 p.m. Meaning, those who tune in to the ponies are the ones who really want to see it rather than the casual fans who get hyped up for a one-race Triple Crown extravaganza.

``This may never have the level of interest as a Triple Crown race, but they had a 100-year head start,'' said Breeders' Cup host Tom Hammond, hired as a horse-racing expert but has since branched into other sports during his time at the network.

``We're always walking a fine line between educating the novice without alienating the confirmed horse followers. Maybe we get too technical at times, but that's the audience for the most part. It does help to have a horse like Funny Cide in there, someone people have heard of and is sort of an equine star.

``I've always thought once you become involved, there are more great stories than any other sport we cover, and once you get people to watch they'll come back and watch again. A lot of NBC people who work on the event are never exposed to horse racing any other time of year, but once they're involved at the track, they get excited and become fans. Viewers are the same way. Once we can engage them they find it interesting. And most sports writers agree the greatest stories come from this sport.''

Michaels, who has produced the event for NBC since 1993 when it made the first of three stops at Santa Anita, admits if you ask 10 people what they know about the Breeders' Cup, seven couldn't give an answer.

``There's not the same national fascination, and it's tough to develop anything in-depth like you can with a Kentucky Derby,'' Michaels said. ``But we're pretty psyched. It's one of the craziest shows we'll do all year, with so many moving parts. It'll be another amazing day and Santa Anita is a great place to do it. To me it's the most beautiful place to watch racing. It's set up perfectly for the pageantry of the Breeders' Cup.''

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By Tom Hoffarth