3 minute read
Highly talented Central Highlands race caller Scott Power has received a surprise early birthday and anniversary present through his selection as broadcaster of two high profile metropolitan races next month.
Scott Power, who celebrates his 55th birthday next Tuesday, will call the Finals of $200,000 County Cups Challenge (1600 metres) and the $105,000 Country Stampede (1110m) at Doomben on Saturday, December 3.
Those races will be the culmination of 32 qualifying heats that have been run throughout Queensland since September 17, concluding at Atherton and Roma this Saturday.
For Power, celebrating his 40th year as a race caller this month, receiving the news earlier this week from Brisbane based RadioTAB Broadcast Director Tony Clements came as a shock.
"The phone call from Tony Clements advising me I had been chosen to call the two Brisbane finals really caught me off guard," Power said.
"After calling the 2019 Battle of the Bush Final at Eagle Farm, never did I think I would ever get the opportunity to call at both Brisbane metropolitan tracks.
"I don't know what to say really, I am truly honoured and feel genuinely privileged and humbled to get this chance."
Tony Clements, a member of the panel charged to select the country-based broadcaster for the two finals said it was no easy task in choosing Scott Power from such a talented field of callers.
"There is so much talent throughout Queensland in the calling ranks," he said.
"This is wonderful for Scott and as Longreach-based broadcaster Rob Luck said on Bush Beat on RadioTAB on Tuesday, it completes the trifecta for Scott having earlier called the Battle of the Bush Final at Eagle Farm."
Power commenced race calling at 14 at his beloved Bluff racecourse where he still broadcasts to this day.
Four years later, he was appointed Emerald Jockey Club race caller, from where just last Saturday he broadcast the TAB races nation-wide.
Always humble and down-playing his natural talent at race broadcasting, Scott Power's life outside of wife Dee, family and employment with Queensland Rail, has centred around horse racing.
Hi mother Marbel, is a daughter of the late Iris Bell known throughout her long and highly successful training career as Rockhampton's 'galloping grandmother'.
Power's aunties Julie and Glenda Bell, still active racing participants, were successful jockeys before becoming trainers winning Rockhampton and Mackay Cups in that field.
Uncle William "Billy" Bell succeeded as a former jockey while he and his trainer wife Jenny are the parents of winning Central Queensland Highlands jockey Emma Bell.
A former trackwork rider and owner himself, it is a given to comment that horse racing is part of Scott Power's DNA.
However, it is his fluent and accurate race broadcasting delivery behind the microphone and binoculars that has endeared him to the Central Queensland and broader racing community.
The recognition bestowed upon Scott with the call-up to broadcast the high-profile country race double at Doomben is rightful testimony of his skills to which vast audiences over four decades would attest.
