Plan: Introduction

They are off and racing now.
And one of the best was Speedy Cheval
Coming out at number two from El Red
And also Florlis Fell’s away fairly well /
A little wider on the track the favourite Race Ruler.
Twilight Time is in behind those.
Breaking up behind is Hoodlum’s Fella
And he went down
And one tipped out was My Dalrae /
And the driver’s out of the sulky.
The horse actually went down on its nose and cart wheeled,
Sulky over the top.
They race their way down the far side (Loop)
1,600 to go
and El Red stroke up / to go to the lead now.
As seen from the extract above, sports commentary is not identified by its vocabulary: sporting terms and idioms can be found elsewhere, such as in press reports and everyday chat. Other factors are more distinctive:

• 
  It is extremely fluent, keeping up with the pace of the activities. The rate is steady, and there is little sign of hesitation noises, false starts, comment clauses, nonsense words, and other features of spontaneous speech.
  
• 
  The prosody is suited to the sport, reflecting the atmosphere and drama. Some very unusual prosodies can be heard, and speeds of articulation which differ greatly from everyday conversations (both slower and faster). Some sports (such as horse racing) may be spoken in a monotone, either loudly (as in horse racing) or softly (as in snooker). Others make use of wide variations in pitch range (as in football or baseball). A commentator may have a favourite way of pointing a commentary, and idiosyncrasy can be strong.
  
• 
  Distinctive grammar is seen in the use of the Present tense (he sends it back); the omission of elements of sentence structure (Gooch in close), inverted word order (over at third is Smith), and extra modifiers (The quiet Texan Tommy John delivers; and Smith, who scored well this season, runs back). The frequent use of the Passive is another survival device: often commentators see a play before they can identify the player, and the Passive (perhaps with a tell-tale pause) allows them to delay mentioning the player’s name (His shot is blocked by Jones).
  
• 
  Discourse structure is cyclical, reflecting the way most games consist of recurring sequences of short activities (as in cricket, tennis, and baseball) or a limited numbers of activity options (as in the various kinds of football ). In racing, the structure is even simpler, the cycling here regularly informing the listener of the varying order of the competitors, with each loop of the cycle introduced by its own formulae. This is a state of play summary, crucial for listeners / viewers who have just switched on or who have simply lost track of what is happening.