Dabo gives Battaglia rooting interest in John Battaglia Memorial

After retiring from race-calling in March 2016, Mike Battaglia returned several times to call races from the Turfway Park booth, where he was the announcer for 43 years. Both visits came for the John Battaglia Memorial, a race named in honor of his late father, the general manager at the track in the 1970s, when Turfway was known as Latonia.

Although Mike Battaglia plans to be at Turfway on Friday evening for the $75,000 Battaglia Memorial, he said Tuesday that he does not plan to call it, leaving announcer Jimmy McNerney to handle the duties. His own fiercest critic, Battaglia was dissatisfied with his call of the race last year.

“I fired myself after the last call, and I think I made the right decision,” he said in a text.

Battaglia has another reason to step aside, being a co-owner of Dabo, who is starting in the race. He has ties to the horse from a partnership headed by Tom Hammond, with whom he worked during horse-racing telecasts at NBC Sports.

“I am really excited about that, and I don’t think I could concentrate on the rest of the field,” Battaglia texted.

Dabo, a 3-year-old gelding trained by Dale Romans, was purchased privately by West Point Thoroughbreds and Hammond’s Peacock Stable after winning his debut Aug. 2 at Arlington Park. Trailing by 15 lengths with a quarter-mile to race, he somehow managed to make up the difference and win the six-furlong race by a neck.

Dabo has raced twice since the acquisition, running seventh in the slop at Churchill Downs on Nov. 25 and fifth in a grass allowance at Gulfstream Park on Dec. 22 behind A Thread of Blue, who went on to win the Dania Beach Stakes last weekend at Gulfstream Park.

Dabo worked a bullet five furlongs in 1:00.20 on Monday at Gulfstream and now returns to race on a synthetic track. Turfway, like Arlington, has a Polytrack surface.