Ernie Myers Dies at 86; Radio Legend, Del Mar Racing Broadcaster

Updated at 9:30 p.m. March 8, 2016

San Diego radio veteran and horse racing broadcaster Ernie Myers died Tuesday at his home in La Mesa, the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club announced.

Myers, 86, died from complications of Parkinson’s disease, according to the DMTC.

Longtime friend Onyx Novelle Jones told club officials that Myers had been fighting Parkinson’s for the past four years and recently entered into a hospice care arrangement.

Myers grew up in Glendale, landed roles in a few movies, and turned to radio after an Army hitch.

He broadcast on the Mighty 690, KSDO and KOGO, using a humorous style in a career that spanned four decades, from the 1950s through the 1980s. Myers also called horse races and hosted a television satellite feed at Del Mar.

Former Union-Tribune reporter and columnist Preston Turegano, a TV and radio writer for eight years ending in 2005, recalls Myers as a “comforting enjoyable voice and personality” in earlier years.

Myers was “always very mellow and comforting, and never arrogant, risqué or ugly like many who came after him on other stations,” Turegano told Times of San Diego. “You felt like he was sitting next to you and talking and not down at you from some Ivory Tower.”

In the early 1970s, he said, Myers appeared at a matinee of San Diego’s Opera’s presentation of “The Daughter of the Regiment” starring Beverly Sills.

“Ernie came out on stage before the opera began dressed like a French Napoleonic soldier (from the era in which the opera is staged) and told the audience they were about to hear and see something exceptional,” Turegano said. “He was right.

“How cool was that? A guy not from the classical music world, but savvy enough to know greatness just as an observer/spectator. And, of course, he was pretty great himself.”

In 2001, the San Diego Radio Broadcasters Association honored Myers with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

“Myers first appeared on San Diego radio in 1954 as the morning man on KCBQ,” said a 2001 Union-Tribune report. “His sojourn with area listeners carried him to XTRA, KOGO (for 19 years), KSDO (for 14 years) and KPOP. Myers’ true passion was horse racing. He was a fixture at Del Mar Race Track, where he conducted post-race interviews.”

According to a profile by Ben Sturtevant, “Being a jock was always a dream of Myers, but radio wasn’t quite what he had in mind. He wanted to be a real jockey — the kind who rides race horses.

“The problem was that Myers lacked the proper size. By the time he was in junior high, he was already too big to make a living aboard thoroughbreds. However, that didn’t stop him from getting involved in the sport; Myers carved a second career out of racing.”

Memorial service arrangements are pending, according to the DMTC.

— Ken Stone and City News Service contributed to this report