Trackside presenter first female caller blazing a trail

• Published date: 18 February 2021
• Author: Paul Williams
• Publication title: Guardian, The

The 31-year-old will be the only woman calling a greyhound race on Commentators Day, now an annual event and a rare occasion where all the racing commentators from New Zealand meet in one place.

The first time Morris called a race was in Palmerston North at Manawatū Raceway at the corresponding event last year, creating history in the process as the first woman to call a greyhound race in New Zealand.

The milestone went largely unheralded, but its significance could not be understated considering greyhound racing first started in New Zealand 110 years ago.

For Morris herself, the race calling was about challenging herself and adding another string to her bow. The commentating could one day complement her main focus of television presenting.

Morris had been a television presenter with racing channel Trackside for nearly three seasons now. She used to live in Levin and is now Auckland based.

The idea of commentating a race herself was only bandied about early last season. The rubber hit the road when she was given a couple of months to prepare for her debut.

“I started practising at home with the TV on mute,” she said.

Conscious of doing well and wanting to prove to herself she could do it, she began practising as much as she could and was able to get behind the binoculars at trials meetings.

Just like the athletes on the track, nothing could beat that raceday experience for shaking out nerves and gaining experience, and the historic day proved a valuable learning curve.

“I wouldn’t say I aced it at all ... it was hard. I had over-prepared and made the mistake of pre-empting the result,” she said.

“There was a $1.50 favourite and I thought he’ll jump out and I’ll go from there, but it didn’t work out like that at all. I learnt a valuable lesson straight away ... the second race went a bit better.”

Morris described herself as someone who was naturally a fast talker and thought that would hold her in good stead for race calling. But the opposite was the case.

“The thing I had to learn was to slow it down. There is this perception that you have to talk fast,” she said.

The outbreak of COVID 19 put paid to an opportunity for Morris to meet Australian race commentator Victoria Shaw, who was to have been at Commentators Day last year.

“I was really looking forward to meeting with her to get a gauge on it and get her perspective,” she said.

Morris said she had never entertained the idea of commentating until hearing Shaw call a race.

“I’d never dreamed of it. Not...