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was brazilian brush laid at 1000s and if so would the layers ahve to pay out?
Not sure if it was laid at a 1000, but whatever high it touched the layers will almost certainly have to pay out. Betfair, and all the other exchanges for that matter settle bets on the official result, not on what a commentator thought the result was.
Mike
Anyone who laid it will have won not lost, Brazilian Brush didn’t win the race
"……….he’s just lucky he hasn’t called an incorrect winner yet."
…………he surely will.
Marble, I think of Cattermole as a race-caller first and a presenter second. He has been calling a long time.
I first came across his name when he was the front-page tipster either on the old Handicap Book or in the early days of The Weekender.
So presumably he sees himself as a ‘jack of all trades’ !!
Colin
was brazilian brush laid at 1000s and if so would the layers ahve to pay out?
Not sure if it was laid at a 1000, but whatever high it touched the layers will almost certainly have to pay out. Betfair, and all the other exchanges for that matter settle bets on the official result, not on what a commentator thought the result was.
Mike
Anyone who laid it will have won not lost, Brazilian Brush didn’t win the race
Sorry, you know what I meant
– I was more concerned at getting the point across about how the race is settled (on an official result as opposed to a commentators result) then getting the name of the winning horse correct – I guess I’m in Cattermole’s camp now 
Mike
I think of Cattermole as a race-caller first and a presenter second. He has been calling a long time.
Since 1993 on the roster, to be precise.
It would not be unreasonable to assume that he’s presided over an average of 80 meetings each year since then, nor to assume that these meetings contained an average of 6.5 races (depending on divided races, bumpers, etc).
By the end of 2008, therefore, he will have commentated on somewhere in the region of 8,320 races for on-course providers (Racetech and antecedents) alone.
Notwithstanding the two errors since December, and notwithstanding that both of them were conspicuous and poor, I’d suggest his ratio of total number of blunders over races over time is still pretty low, all things considered. It’s more an issue of what this will do for both his confidence, and the confidence of those courses who make most use of him.
gc
Adoptive father of two. The patron saint of lower-grade fare. A gently critical friend of point-to-pointing. Kindness is a political act.
Marb – what policial correctness got to do with having Cat as the commentator? Do they have to have a certain %age of spectacle wearers?
The one exception to the rule for me is Simon Holt, because he was presenting one day at the start of the flat season and I found it enjoyable.
He’s hardly the only one. Messrs Hoiles, Hunt and Bartlet also present periodically, and the a*rse hasn’t fallen out of their commentary skills as a result.
Indeed, practically the entire current Racetech roster of 21 or so commentators maintains other paid work in sport, and principally racing, besides just the commentary (I can only think of Malcolm Tomlinson who does not, and that has more to do with his ongoing commitments as an actor than anything else).
Given that specialist racing TV channels can close or shed staff, specialist racing publications can cease trading (don’t I know it!) and Racetech can release people as well as hire, all at shortish notice, it just makes sense to me for the fortunate few to maintain as wide-ranging a portfolio of engagements as possible whilst they can. I’m sure I’d do precisely the same thing in the same apocryphal position.
Jeremy
(graysonscolumn)Adoptive father of two. The patron saint of lower-grade fare. A gently critical friend of point-to-pointing. Kindness is a political act.
Notwithstanding the two errors since December,
Let’s not forget the Grand National commentary which was totally marred by his errors and there have been plenty more, Ebor etc, he’s also a poor judge of pace and how well horses are going. If someone is making mistakes surely they should be be putting the homework in to get it right, going through the horses and colours for at least a full day prior to the meeting, they get paid enough to do this and people pay enough to listen to them. I think some commentators just turn up on the day with little preparation. Look how thorough Peter O’Sullevan was in his preparation and it showed.
I’m not talking about presenting the morning line, and I have not or for the life of me can’t remember Richard Hoiles fronting a show on channel 4 in the afternoon’s; I thought he was the one doing the commentating?
He does plenty on non-commentary work for RUK as well, be that presenting (I seem to remember he was frontman for Prufrock’s first appearance as a Kempton AW pundit, no?) or doing the booth bits.
gc
Adoptive father of two. The patron saint of lower-grade fare. A gently critical friend of point-to-pointing. Kindness is a political act.
Let’s not forget the Grand National commentary which was totally marred by his errors and there have been plenty more, Ebor etc, he’s also a poor judge of pace and how well horses are going.
I was simply thinking of instances of calling the wrong one home rather than the minutiae of a performance when I made my comments, though I’m not wholly unsympathetic to the points you’ve raised above.
gc
Adoptive father of two. The patron saint of lower-grade fare. A gently critical friend of point-to-pointing. Kindness is a political act.
And in my humble opinion I think commentating is a hard enough job without playing around with presenting horse racing as well and would rather they didn’t do it.
I think you will find, like everyone else, they have bills to pay and families to support and the income from commentating alone would not be sufficient to keep the bailiff from the door.
As it happens, Mike Cattermole is "special guest" at the opening of the 29th Annual Exhibition of The Society of Equestrian Artists tonight, which I am also attending.
Hopefully he will remember to refer to it as The Society of Equestrian Artists and not The National Portrait Gallery, or similar….
I fail to see what impact their other work should have on their commentating- true professionals will only commit to an amount of work they can do well. Catt’s blunders are getting a little frequent for comfort and he needs to apply himself diligently to make the critics go away- perhaps a little less on-screen time and a bit more concentration on the core job might help. He’s in danger of being put in the same category as Simon’s Racing Post tipping at this rate
No sympathy whatsoever for the idiots who’ve laid the winner at 1.01. In being greedy and being too damned lazy to use their own eyesight and work out what is going on for themselves and relying on the commentary alone they deserve whatever comes to them.
I’m surprised by responses like above everytime a commentator makes a balls up, don’t recall any bettors whinging about it losing them money but the extremely poor commentating deserves to be highlighted.
In fact anyone who’s laid the winner at 1.01 would be reasonably happy compared to those who laid it at 1000 or backed the loser at 1.01.Sorry – my mistake, of course. Not thinking straight!
I still stand by my opinion though – and I think that in all fairness Mike has probably been unlucky in suffering two such high profile blunders this year. As has been pointed out, many other commentators often make a horlicks but tend to get away with it since it hasn’t happened during a finish/involving a winner. Mistakes happen – especially in poor visibility and bid fields. IIRC the Newbury race in the winter was run in poor visilbility since it was hacking down with rain at the time, in a big field it wouldn’t be the most difficult thing to mistake horses with similar conditions in such conditions.
I can understand people having a pop at the Catt, i have met once last year when he was calling at Warwick on the Tuesday after Cheltenham and he does use bins aswell as the monitor.
I have also been in the commentary box with John Hunt a few times and seen him learn a 16 runner handicap field from scratch and call the race and make it look easy.
Best thing to do for all the sniping at commentators is to turn the sound off the telly, get your Racing Post and have a go yourself if you think commentating is easy.
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