chart caller

• chart-caller, chartcaller

chart caller (plural chart callers)

1. (horse racing) A person who is responsible for systemically recording the performance of the racehorses throughout a horse race.
   • 2003 May 16, John Scheinman, “Chartcallers, Setting the Track Record”, in The Washington Post‎^[1], Washington, D.C.: The Washington Post Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 18 August 2023:

     The chartcallers' routine goes something like this: When the horses come onto the track, chartcallers jot down equipment information -- which runners are wearing blinkers, bandages on their forelegs, special horse shoes. While this is going on, they memorize and match the color of each jockey's silks to his mount's name. Or, as is the case with Feustle and most newer chartcallers, the number on the saddle cloth.

   • 2007, T. D. Thornton, Not by a Long Shot: A Season at a Hard Luck Horse Track, New York, N.Y.: PublicAffairs, →ISBN, page 42:

     When Jim Bishop was an Equibase chartcaller himself several seasons back, he would sometimes stray from the pre-programmed database comments and get creative with his past performance charts. For sorry horses such as Regal Bishop, he liked to utilize his favorite selfcoined disparity: Appeared to dislike racing.

   • 2012 February 8, Andrew Beyer, “New racing technology could offer vast amounts of data to handicappers”, in The Washington Post‎^[2], Washington, D.C.: The Washington Post Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 18 August 2023:

     The technology has been sufficiently accurate that Equibase has changed its method of charting races at tracks using the system. Historically, the details of every race have been gathered by a chart-caller who watches the action through binoculars and calls out numbers to a partner. Now Trakus produces the charts, though the data still requires oversight and tweaking by Equibase personnel.

   • 2021 May 1, Melissa Hoppert, “At This Kentucky Derby Party House, Everyone Is ’Like Family’”, in The New York Times‎^[3], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2022-04-28:

     Another, Jamie Zoeller, was a Pavement superfan. He met Nastanovich at a bar in Chicago in the '90s, and Nastanovich told him about his Derby house. Nastanovich (now a chart caller at Prairie Meadows racetrack in Altoona, Iowa) wrote down the address on a bar napkin, and Zoeller carried it around in his wallet until one day he made it, in 1999.

• “chart caller”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.