Today Tuesday the 16th of June marks John Tapp’s last day as a racing broadcaster after 50 years behind the microphone and in front of the camera.
Tapp’s last official hosting role will be a special one-hour episode and the season finale of In the Gig at 6pm tonight on Sky Racing 2 (FOXTEL channel 520), almost 50 years to the day after his career started at 2GB. Special guests, Ray Hadley and Ian Craig will join Tapp on his final show.
Tapp can also be heard hosting his last On the Pace radio show on Sky Sports Radio this morning from 10:30am.
Tapp has been one of the iconic voices of Australian racing and called more than 50,000 races over his career with his last race call in 1998. Tapp has held various hosting roles at Sky Racing since.
When he announced his retirement in April this year Tapp said he will miss sharing his love of racing with the Sky audience. Now that the moment has come, Tapp has stuck with the same sentiment.
“The thing I’m going to miss most of all, is having the honour of visiting thousands of Australian homes,” he said.
“It’s been a true privilege to talk about my favourite subjects – horses, and horsemen and women.”
Tapp was honoured with an Order of Australia Medal in 1996 “for service to horse sports as a national and international racecaller, and to charitable organisations as an organiser and compere of fundraising events” and was bestowed the title of Australia Post Australian Legend in 2007 when he was immortalised in a stamp series.
A special tribute show in honour of John Tapp will air on Sky Racing in the coming weeks.
REBECCA LUDBROOK
CORPORATE AFFAIRS ADVISOR