Today, many government offices close Thursday at noon in Delaware, Ohio. City schools are closed both Thursday and Friday. The reason? The Delaware County Fair and its centrepiece, Thursday's Little Brown Jug.
The importance of this event is not lost on announcer Roger Huston, the voice of the Little Brown Jug since 1968. Huston tries to give the crowd that level of importance on each and every race call, whether it's The Jug or not.
“Why not give them that experience of everything you’ve got into that race?" Huston told the Columbus Dispatch. "Because it might be the biggest race of that person’s life. You don’t know.”
While Huston recounted some of his favourite Little Brown Jug moments in the September issue of Trot Magazine, he told the The Dispatch of a story from earlier in his career that served as an important preparation lesson. While calling a race at Pompano Park in Florida in the 1970s, four women came into the booth for a behind the scenes look at the broadcast booth.
“I paid more attention to those four, drop-dead gorgeous women than I did the upcoming race," Huston, who turned 72 on Tuesday, told The Dispatch. "All of a sudden the race started and I realized I hadn’t memorized the horses,” recalled Huston. “But guess what? In the very first call out of the gate I memorized those horses -— because I had to.”
The Little Brown Jug brought to you by Fazoli’s will air live from 5:00 - 6:30 p.m. on CBS Sports Network. The last Jug elimination heat will be shown live at approximately 5:11 p.m. The remaining elimination will be covered on a tape delay basis. The second heat of the Jug will be shown live at approximately 6:15 p.m. If a race-off is necessary, CBS Sports Network will cut into its regularly scheduled program at 7:00 p.m. to show the race-off live. Post time of the race-off would be approximately 7:02 p.m.
To view printable program pages for the Little Brown Jug card, click the following link:
Program Pages - Jug Card (Thursday) - Delaware County Fair