HOT SPRINGS — Frank Mirahmadi began 2012 on his feet in Arkansas and ended the year on one knee in Oklahoma.

Mirahmadi became engaged to Heather Haviland on Dec. 29 in Oklahoma City, about 24 hours before he arrived in Hot Springs to begin preparing for his second season as Oaklawn Park’s track announcer.

“For the element of shocks, now, it was a 10 on the shock scale,” Mirahmadi said. “She had no idea. For a few seconds, she was just kind of staring, like just totally caught off guard. And then she reached for the ring, so that was a good sign.”

Proposing wasn’t the only pressure-cooker moment for Mirahamdi last year.

Mirahmadi, 45, was tapped to replace Oaklawn legend Terry Wallace, who was the track’s announcer from 1975-2011, a stint that included 20,191 consecutive races called.

“The position of track announcer here is so much more magnified, and that’s really because of what Terry did,” Mirahmadi said. “Terry made this a very important position in the community.”

Mirahmadi said he was pleased with his debut season at Oaklawn, particularly the call of the biggest race of his career - Bodemeister’s 91/2-length victory over stablemate Secret Circle in the $1 million Grade I Arkansas Derby on the final day of the meeting.

Both horses were trained by Hall of Famer Bob Baffert.

Bodemeister entered the stretch with a lead of about two lengths over Secret Circle, prompting Mirahmadi, a few seconds later, to declare “Baffert is dominating.”

“When they turned for home, usually at that point, I should go back and identify the rest of the horses,” Mirahmadi said. “Normally, I would be mad at myself for not doing that. But that fact was, those two horses, it was them. There was no one else that was really going to be a factor.”

Following the Oaklawn meeting, Mirahmadi spent much of his time in his native California, calling races at several tracks on the California Authority of Racing Fair circuit (Haviland is marketing director for CARF) and working as an analyst for TVG, the horse racing channel based in Los Angeles.

But home is now standing in the announcer’s booth - again - at Oaklawn.

“Let’s put it this way: The excitement level hasn’t changed one bit,” Mirahmadi said. “I was overjoyed to get here last year, and there is certainly no letdown in returning. It’s actually something I’ve been looking forward to.

“This is as good as it gets when it comes to calling races.”

Sports, Pages 17 on 01/11/2013