Michael Wrona

Michael Wrona is an announcer from Australia specializing in thoroughbred horse racing. He is the current race caller at Golden Gate Fields in northern California, and has previously called races at Hollywood Park Racetrack in southern California; Bay Meadows in northern California; Arlington Park in Illinois; the New Orleans Fair Grounds in Louisiana; and Lone Star Park Turf Paradise Racecourse in Phoenix, Arizona and Retama Park in Texas.

Wrona is best known for the phrase "Racing!", which he says at the start of every race call.

Historical calls

Michael Wrona has called some historic thoroughbred races during his calling career in the United States.

In 1996, Wrona called the Arlington Citation Challenge at Arlington Park, in which Cigar won his 16th consecutive race. The win tied the previous record of nearly 50 years held by Citation.

On December 10, 1999, at Hollywood Park, Wrona called the race that saw Laffit Pincay Jr pass Bill Shoemaker for most career victories by a jockey. Nearly seven years later, on December 1, 2006, Wrona was the announcer for the race at Bay Meadows in which Russell Baze passed Pincay for the same honors.

Wrona is also one of five guest announcers auditioning to take over as permanent announcer at Churchill Downs for the late Luke Kruytbosch. Nov 11, 2008 Video segment by WLKY of his guest announcing

On November 11, 2008, Wrona called all seven of Julien Leparoux's winners. Leparoux became only the second jockey in the 134-year history of Churchill Downs to win seven races in a single day. He tied the record set by Pat Day set when he won seven of the eight races on June 20, 1984.

Wrona remarked during the race just after crossing the line in the fourth consecutive win on the card by Leparoux: "I tell you, he'd win on a broomstick!"

Wrona's hobbies include logical puzzles and quantified constraint satisfaction.