Nick Luck, a man with a name Damon Runyon would love, is barnstorming America on NBC’s nickel this month, spreading his very British charm and horse racing insights across the continent in a three-cornered shot that should be the envy of anyone who loves high-stakes Thoroughbred competition. Luck will be live from Del Mar on Saturday afternoon as part of the network team broadcasting the Pacific Classic, topped by Arrogate. Last weekend Luck was in Chicago for the Arlington Million. Next weekend he will be at Saratoga for the Travers. And along the way, Luck managed to squeeze in an appearance at the inaugural Equestricon hullabaloo in Saratoga Springs as both a panelist and keynote speaker on Day 2 of the ambitious conclave. For those in the audience not familiar with the six-time British racing Broadcaster of the Year, Luck’s press clippings sing with praises like, “Nick Luck brings a suave sophistication to racing that mere mortals can only dream about,” from the Paddy Power website, and, “He both knows his stuff and struts his stuff without repetition, hesitation or deviation,” from the Daily Mail. Just to keep things in perspective, however, The Scottish Farmer (a publication, not an actual farmer in Scotland) characterized Luck as “bright and intellectual no doubt, but insufferable beyond words,” while a comment on Britain’s Racing Forum website described him as “pompous, stuck up and arrogant.” Rebuttal? “But those things all might be true,” Luck said, deadpan firmly in place. Luck provides a continental touch to the menu of very American personalities NBC musters for its nearly yearlong schedule of shows, led by the Triple Crown and the Breeders’ Cup. This year NBC added Royal Ascot, with Luck in the driver’s seat. At age 38, Luck has been a ubiquitous presence for most of the past decade in British racing circles, from his earlier exposure on attheraces and Racing UK to his run as Channel 4 racing host. It was Channel 4’s loss of the racing franchise at the end of 2016 that gave Luck the opportunity for more work in the States. “I find the people in America to be quite nice, although I might be given a bye because I’m English,” Luck suggested. There you go. It’s the accent. “I’m happy to work with what I’ve got,” Luck replied, playing along. “In real life I sound like Dick Van Dyke in ‘Mary Poppins.’ ” He must have sounded pretty good as a teen in the Lady Bourchier Reading Prize competition at England’s famed Harrow School to have impressed judge Stephen Fry – the actor, author, and all-around Renaissance guy – enough to award him first place over schoolmate Benedict Cumberbatch, known these days by his acting alter-egos Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Strange. “I don’t remember what I read,” recalled Luck, who had ambitions for the stage. “But the real ‘prize’ was the prestige of winning such an ancient, arcane competition.” In his 2014 memoir, “More Fool Me,” Fry cited the Harrow experience. “I cannot remember the name of the boy who won first,” Fry wrote, “but I hope he will suddenly burst on to the acting scene, blow Benedict out of the water and finally vindicate my judgment.” I suppose there’s still time, but for now it is Luck’s job to cut through the clutter of European form, which makes about as much sense to domestic handicappers as the Dead Sea scrolls. Wisely, Luck’s NBC handlers have given him some rope to range more freely through American racing issues, as evidenced during the Arlington Million telecast when the subject of Arrogate’s poor race in the recent San Diego Handicap was addressed as part of a routine promo for the upcoming Pacific Classic telecast. Luck dismissed out of hand the idea that Bob Baffert had made any mistakes in Arrogate’s training. He maintained that no horse ever elevated to such heights had ever run a race of such lifeless disinterest without deeper reason. He further went on record suggesting that Arrogate probably would not bounce back in the Pacific Classic, although he fervently hoped he would be proven wrong. “Obviously, this weekend’s endeavor is made all the more appealing by whatever happens to Arrogate, whether it’s a glorious return to form or another abject performance,” Luck said as he prepared to head for Del Mar. “It’s always been my guiding principle to be of a forgiving nature for a horse’s one bad performance,” Luck went on. “But there’s bad, and then there’s really, really bad. All the great horses have been beaten, but that was almost unprecedented. I think people in England would be less prepared to brush it off and simply imagine that normal service would be renewed next time.” Among the topics Luck addressed at Equestricon was the perfect fit of horse racing and the modern world of social media, even though racing and its personalities are sometimes treated harshly in the digital public square. “I did get a bit of pushback that I’d been hard on Arrogate on the Million broadcast,” Luck said. “But it was because I like the horse so much and have so much respect for what he has achieved that a sense of disappointment and despair is heightened when he runs like that. “No one would be more delighted than I to see him return to form. I suspect we’ll know within the first hundred yards.”