Some people search their entire lives to find a passion to parlay into a career. Others, like the new announcer at Oaklawn Racing and Gaming in Hot Springs, know what that is from a young age.
Even as a child, Pete Aiello knew he wanted to work in the horse-racing business. His father and grandfather took him to the races at Hialeah Park, near Aiello’s boyhood home of West Palm Beach, Florida. Aiello is a track announcer at Gulfstream Park and Hialeah Park. He also held the positions of director of simulcasting and mutuel settlements, racebook manager, assistant mutuel manager and director of admissions and patron services at Hialeah Park. Aiello will retain his positions of director of simulcasting at Hialeah and summertime announcer at Gulfstream.
“I’ll be back at Gulfstream calling races two days after I leave here,” Aiello said.
According to a press release from Oaklawn, within 48 hours of learning that it needed to fill the position, Aiello was hired.
“He’s an up-and-coming track announcer that has built a very good reputation in the business,” said Jennifer Hoyt, media-relations manager at Oaklawn. “We were looking for somebody that would, obviously, fit into the world-class racing that we offer — not only somebody that would be a good race-caller, but someone that would want to be here for a while.”
Aiello’s mother was a social worker, and his father was an electrician who fixed neon signs. Aiello’s father still lives in West Palm Beach but has retired and is a doorman at a condo, Aiello said. The family’s love of horse racing extends to Aiello’s grandfather, who was a football coach and a school principal for much of his life. Aiello said his grandfather made most of his bets at the dog tracks, but he met a rival football coach from Hialeah High School named Bill Hartack, who went on to become a Hall of Fame jockey. Hartack got Aiello’s grandfather interested in horse racing.
When Aiello was 3 years old, his grandmother bought him a pink jockey suit from the gift shop at Hialeah.
“That was the end of that; I ran around like I was in Disney World,” Aiello said. “I thought it was the greatest place in the world, watching the horses and running down the stretch with them. I was hooked by about 3 — much to my mother and grandmother’s dismay.”
Aiello said his father is “the biggest Oaklawn fan alive,” and Aiello’s mother encouraged what she saw as a skill her son possessed for public speaking. At his party for his fourth birthday, Aiello said his mom recorded him performing for his family, and when he was asked who was invited, Aiello said, “All of the characters that want to come; that’s all I’m going to say.” His mother knew that his vernacular was something special to be nurtured.
In high school, he said, he enjoyed debate and speech classes and participated in speech competitions. Aiello twice qualified for the National Speech and Debate Association National Tournament; the first was in Washington, D.C., and the second was in Boston. Aiello said he and his competition partner were confident they would make the quarterfinals in Boston but didn’t think their piece was worthy of the national title. So they left the competition to sightsee.
His partner wanted to see the bar that inspired the television comedy Cheers, and Aiello wanted to attend Suffolk Downs. They took the subway and saw their respective sights. He said that when it was time to round up the students, the teacher supervising the trip didn’t have to ask where he was. She just called his cellphone and said, “When does the next train leave from the track, because we need to go.”
Aiello is a 2007 graduate of the University of Arizona race-track-industry program. When Aiello graduated magna cum laude, his mother was proud, he said, despite her reluctance to embrace his passion when he was younger. He said he attended the university because of a specific industry legend affiliated with the program.
“I was a sophomore in high school, and by then I had kind of tinkered with the idea of maybe I can be a track announcer,” Aiello said.
“And I saw an advertisement in a racing form with a guy named Luke Kruytbosch’s picture on it. It said, ‘The race-track-industry program at the University of Arizona was a big part of getting me the job in racing.’ Of course, he was the track announcer at Hollywood and Churchill. So when I saw that he had gone to this program, and here he was doing exactly what I wanted to do, that was the end of that. That was the only school [to which] I applied. I don’t know what I would have done if I didn’t get in,” Aiello said.
“Little did I know that the guy whose picture was in this ad that I saw would be the guy that’s responsible for my career. He was my mentor,” Aiello said. Kruytbosch died in 2008.
The program’s ability to create connections in the industry is what Aiello said contributed the most to his post-college success, but Aiello also has a strong devotion to hard work.
“If you want to motivate me, tell me I can’t do something,” Aiello said. “And I’ll do it just to spite you, whether I want to do it or not.”
Staff writer Morgan Acuff can be reached at (501) 244-4314 or macuff@arkansasonline.com.