Long Islander to compete on 'Amazing Race'

Danny Horal grew up in Sayville and helped win a New York State baseball championship for Mercy High in Riverhead back in 2003. Friday nights he's a club promoter at the GLO nightclub on Merrick Avenue in Westbury.

And -- oh, yes, this: He'll be on the 20th season of "The Amazing Race," premiering Feb. 19 on CBS. He'll be teamed up with Whitestone's Joey Lasalla, described by the show as a trainer/supplement company owner.

A big deal? A big deal indeed. If the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences is your guide, the multi-Emmy-winning "The Amazing Race" is the best reality show on TV, and -- to aficionados -- the best TV show, period. It is a hard, grueling competition that prizes brains over brawn along with a keen ability to book flights out of (say) a remote airstrip in Peru. The show says this year's course "will be one of the most competitive ever . . . skydiving in Argentina, training with the Masai warriors in Tanzania . . ."

And good luck with that, Danny. (Contestants are prohibited from commenting on the action on the show until it debuts.)

Horal, 27 -- who did tell Newsday contributor Frank Lovece via email that he's spent the past 10 years living in Holbrook -- now joins something of a Long Island tradition on "Race." Jon Weiss of Port Jefferson Station and Al Rios of Northport finished in fourth place on season 4. Weiss -- for years the renowned "human cannonball" for Ringling Brothers and more recently a host for California-based Circus Vargas -- said by phone Wednesday that "even if you had all the money in the world and wanted to create the same feeling of an 'Amazing Race,' you'd never be able to duplicate it. It is the best reality show out there and I can tell you from experience that it is reality."

His advice to Horal? "I certainly hope you picked a partner you can get along with."