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Am I right in thinking that the BBC used to show racing from Bath and Leicester? This was many many years ago and think only one day a year.
Don’t recall Leicester but Bath yes: Joe Mercer dropped his hands on one and was caught on the line – ‘Oh Joe, you’ll get a holiday for that’ spake Peter O’S. Late 70s
…at one time they would show racing from just about anywhere if it was on a Saturday…
..in 1967-68 during foot and mouth outbreak the BBC even went to Saint-Cloud, and/or Cagnes-sur-Mer,
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I don’t recall Cartmel being on CH4/ITV. When was this?
I will try and get a better idea, im guessing mid to late 80s because our bookies didnt have a tv then(thats right no tv, and with no dedicated racing channels it had to be on terrstrial. It may have been the one and only time, but it was my first recollection of Cartmel. I dont think AW racing could get abandoned main meetings out of a hole in them days either!!
The only time I went to Cartmel races, I parked the car on the piece of grass on the edge of the village, near the junction that heads towards Grange-over-Sands, so as to be able to make a quick break for it in the right direction after the last race.
Got there hours early, of course, so avoided the long traffic jams.I remember the BBC covering Bath and Leicester. The biggest surprise with the BBC’s coverage in those halcyon days, of course, was the once-a-year visit to Bangor-on-Dee.
One of the visits became famous for Julian Wilson’s famous faux pas during the commentary of saying that the runners were passing the stands, only to add: "…except, of course, there aren’t any stands". The clip ended up on It’ll Be Alright On The Night.
Channel 4 has more recently paid an annual visit to Bangor.
Julian Wilson used to do the commentary for the smaller meetings like Bangor. Peter O’Sullevan didn’t seem to lower himself to doing those meetings.
The BBC occasionally used to cover Wetherby and Wincanton over Christmas, depending on what day of the week it fell.
Interesting that Channel 4 are going to Leicester. I remember in the old days of the ITV 7, they used to pay unscheduled visits to Leicester sometimes if other meetings were abandoned.
Perth and Leicester in the space of a couple of days on Channel 4? Whatever next? You’ll be telling me next that they are covering the Grand National and Royal Ascot next year…..I recall Wincanton’s Boxing Day card was a regular fixture until the mid 80’s on the BBC, while they also covered the occasional Charlie Hall or Castleford if schedules permitted.
Sure I read in Peter O’Sullevan’s Autobiog that one Boxing Day (in the 60’s I think) that the BBC Racing team positioned themselves halfway between Kempton & Sedgefield (Sedgefield being the back up if Kempton was abandoned!)
Re: Tracks that used to be covered back in the day…
I can recall in the early 1980’s BBC Television would cover one day a year from Bath, Bangor, Leicester and Wincanton. I will check with some BBC staff I know but I am pretty sure these meetings were covered as BBC South West, BBC Midlands and BBC Wales each had a remit or agreement to cover a certain amount of live sports and in those days they would often use less experienced Producers and crew from those provincial areas so they could show their stuff. However, during this time, all of the graphics would have come from the bowels of television centre and cut in to the presentation -so in essence it was still very much London based no matter where they were covered.
And the BBC used manual captions until 1985 whereas the last non manual caption used by World of Sport was phased out in 1977 (at least for racing) though the big five ITV companies of the time, LWT, Thames, Yorkshire, ATV and Granada all swopped out at different times. So weekday racing still often had different hand made captions until channel 4 started experimenting with a more unified look on weekday coverage in 1984 but continued to use LWT’s graphics package until 1986, when they began using their own on weekend coverage, it having moved to C4 in November of that year.
Back in the 70’s the BBC definitely did the odd day at Wetherby.
I have the ITV6 from Hennessy day, 1981 and with the big race on the BBC the thrill packed ITV6 came from Wolverhampton and Market Rasen with about 3-6 horses per race. Dire stuff.
BBC Television definitely showed racing from Carholme in the 1950’s and Stockton on the 1960’s.
I can never remember Cartmel on ITV and I wonder if some posters are getting confused with the fact that around SIS’s opening day they showed Cartmel. Raleigh Gilbert was the commentator and quite a big to do was made as he was the first to call at all the courses in the UK?
On one very rare day, the ITV 7 included a visit to Bath, which in those days was a great revelation and proved very interesting.
The coverage was in May on FA Cup Day and was presented by John Oaksey with commentary by Raleigh Gilbert. It was an eye-opener for me then to see the amazing gradients of the course.
When I later visited the course many years ago, I was amazed to see the distinguished actor Robert Morley walking about in his huge striped blazer. Apparently, he was a regular racegoer there.
Not as surprising as seeing Paul Daniels in the parade ring at Salisbury back in the 1980s, minus his wig. Or Ronnie Corbett at Lingfield also in the 1980s. He had a runner there on Grand National day.The old midweek racing coverage on ITV used to include hand-written italic-style racing results, which I believe were written and collated by the man who read them, Peter Moor.
The midweek programmes were produced by Thames Television and were very different in feel and personnel from World of Sport, produced by London Weekend Television.
There was no list of the runners and riders, just a shot of the numbers board at the course, giving the names of the jockeys. The commentator gave the names of the runners and riders over this picture. Sometimes, the board men raised the board while he was reading them and it was taken down, leaving the commentator to carry on without it.
The World of Sport racing results were a bit more professional and were read by Peter Scowcroft. He was later replaced by the late John Tyrrel, a bon viveur and racing historian who moved over to Channel 4.
It was compulsory for him to be called "JT", especially by Tommo, but not by Brough Scott, who kept it a bit more professional and insisted on calling him by his proper name. Can’t stand this false mateyness.
Peter Scowcroft was sometimes promoted to reading the Australian pools check when Bob Colston was not available. Before Colston began his long-running association with the football results, it was Bob Bateman who read them.
I used to like it on World of Sport when Fred Dinenage used to stand in for Dickie Davies during the summer. Gerald Sinstadt and Steve Rider also filled in before the programme was finally axed, wrestling and all. Wrestling, of course, was deemed so important that it had stand-alone coverage for a while after that.
The old BBC manually produced racing results gave the impression that they had been hand-written. They were italic-style but quite impressive looking for the time.
They were intoned, of course, by the great Len Martin, more famous for reading the football results. Sometimes, Tim Gudgin did them. Len Martin, of course, died many years ago and Tim Gudgin, also a Radio 2 newsreader and a presenter of Radio 4’s Top Of The Form, finally retired last year.
I thought the BBC’s graphics were very good for this year’s Grand National coverage.
Peter Scowcroft is still going strong, as far as I know, and popped up on the Morning Line a few years ago when he was one of the winners of the champion tipster competition.
Tommo recognised the name but pretended not to do so and, after a couple of seconds hesitation, moderated the lift in his voice so as not to open himself up to the charge that his old colleague had been shown favouritism.I recall an ITV7 that included Catterick. Brough Scott’s introduction was along the lines of ‘welcome to Catterick where we can look forward to seeing some of the worst horses in training’
Honest, if not quite what the powers-that-were at ITV Sport wanted to hear I guess
Am I right in thinking that the BBC used to show racing from Bath and Leicester? This was many many years ago and think only one day a year.
Don’t recall Leicester but Bath yes: Joe Mercer dropped his hands on one and was caught on the line – ‘Oh Joe, you’ll get a holiday for that’ spake Peter O’S. Late 70s
Definitely Leicester, I can remember backing one of Clive Brittains when it won the Leicestershire Stakes in the 80’s and the Beeb showed it.
Of course they covered lots of other tracks as well, flat racing at Ayr and Ripon Rowels day at Ripon on Bank Holiday Monday were a couple of others.I recall an ITV7 that included Catterick. Brough Scott’s introduction was along the lines of ‘welcome to Catterick where we can look forward to seeing some of the worst horses in training’
Catterick used to feature on the ITV7 quite regularly, especially for National Hunt racing.
Fakenham also used to be featured once a year. One day in December it was blowing an absolute gale and Brough Scott was forced to take shelter in the commentary box with Graham Goode and do his bits from there.
Towcester, Hereford, Warwick, Wolverhampton and Nottingham were also covered on the ITV7. I used to like seeing the smaller courses getting coverage.Nottingham – the good days when they had national hunt racing. I also recall in the 1980’s ITV used to show Salisbury for 1,000 and 2,000 Guineas trials.
As far as I’m aware C4 has never shown racing from:
Cartmel
Fakenham
Folkestone
Hexham
Ludlow
Pontefract
Sedgefield
Taunton
YarmouthCreating that list it was amazing to think how many courses they have covered: Brighton (a couple of years they showed one race during their York Ebor coverage) and Plumpton (once a few years ago in September)
Hexham used to be on the ITV7, sharing coverage with Doncaster on Lincoln day. As often as not, however, the meeting was abandoned because of waterlogging, snow or whatever and it nearly always turned into an ITV4.
I can only remember one time when I used to watch the ITV when that Hexham meeting ended up being televised by ITV that day. John Penney was the commentator.
Lingfield, Worcester and Market Rasen were among other courses to feature on the old ITV coverage.Crusty:
You said: The old midweek racing coverage on ITV used to include hand-written italic-style racing results, which I believe were written and collated by the man who read them, Peter Moor.
You said: The midweek programmes were produced by Thames Television and were very different in feel and personnel from World of Sport, produced by London Weekend/LWT.
You said: There was no list of the runners and riders, just a shot of the numbers board at the course, giving the names of the jockeys. The commentator gave the names of the runners and riders over this picture. Sometimes, the board men raised the board while he was reading them and it was taken down, leaving the commentator to carry on without it.
You said: The old BBC manually produced racing results gave the impression that they had been hand-written. They were italic-style but quite impressive looking for the time.This is because they were handwritten. And literally the slates were manually loaded and removed. Impressive perhaps when introduced in 1965, less so by 1985! The runners and riders caption they used was always made with manual type faces and depending on the operator that day they would either pan the camera down or slide the caption (generally frowned upon as they were not supposed to touch the camera) as the list progressed.
Peter Moor was certainly the betting and results man for the ITV mid-week racing programmes in the 1970s because I heard him many times during those programmes over a number of years. Presenters like Brough Scott linked to him by name.
He did the betting and results for the midweek televised meetings and Peter Scowcroft did the betting shows and results for the World of Sport programmes.
I didn’t start watching TV racing until the mid to late 1970s and he was certainly in action then, although I can’t remember exactly what era it was. I don’t think I would have been watching in 1970.
It wasn’t until John Tyrrel did the betting and results for the midweek and weekend programmes that one person did it for both. Peter Scowcroft never did the midweek programmes and it was always Peter Moor midweek.
The course’s numbers board was shown during the midweek broadcasts from many courses, with John Penney and Raleigh Gilbert reading out the runners and riders, together with the draw number, no doubt from their own racecards and hand-drawn sets of colours etc. Again, this would have been during the Peter Moor TV era, of which I saw many programmes over these years.
Can’t say what happened in the 1960s on the BBC because I would not have been watching then.Just remembered that the BBC used to cover the odd National Hunt meeting from Ayr.
It was Peter O’Sullevan who travelled up there for televised meetings in January and March, I seem to remember.
I’ve a feeling the BBC switched to Ayr for one jumps meeting when Channel 4 won the rights to Cheltenham. It could have been on what is now Cheltenham Trials Day.
I’ve got a vague recollection that the BBC also covered racing from Stockton once, of all places. I remember being fascinated that the BBC would cover that meeting and watched it. It certainly looked a big, galloping track.
ITV also covered racing from there, in the days when it was known as Teesside Park. I remember when it abruptly closed in the early 1980s, it was a big shock to the northern racing scene.
Surprising how many courses have been covered by the BBC and ITV/Channel 4 in the same calendar year through not necessarily having exclusive contracts with the courses or agreeing to allow the other broadcaster to cover a meeting they were not interested in.
Haydock always seemed to be the most favoured, with virtually every Saturday covered by either the BBC or Channel 4 at the time.
Sometimes, Channel 4 would take one of the Haydock races once the BBC had gone off the air, something it also did with Ascot until, in the end, Channel 4 was covering more days at Ascot than the BBC, which had been synonymous with it.
The loss of the BBC’s coverage of the Chester May meeting caused waves at the time but it seems like small beer now, of course, with the loss of the entire BBC coverage lock, stock and barrel.I’ve got a vague recollection that the BBC also covered racing from Stockton once, of all places. I remember being fascinated that the BBC would cover that meeting and watched it. It certainly looked a big, galloping track.
ITV also covered racing from there, in the days when it was known as Teesside Park. I remember when it abruptly closed in the early 1980s, it was a big shock to the northern racing scene.Dont know if youve seen the photos below Crusty, but picture 2 shows the "television staff room" as they call it, meaning as you say, one of the channels covered racing from there.
I’ve got a vague recollection that the BBC also covered racing from Stockton once, of all places. I remember being fascinated that the BBC would cover that meeting and watched it. It certainly looked a big, galloping track.
ITV also covered racing from there, in the days when it was known as Teesside Park. I remember when it abruptly closed in the early 1980s, it was a big shock to the northern racing scene.Dont know if youve seen the photos below Crusty, but picture 2 shows the "television staff room" as they call it, meaning as you say, one of the channels covered racing from there.
http://www.picturestockton.co.uk/viewpage.aspx?id=1921Thanks, Dave. Interesting photos and information about the course on this Stockton website.
It’s a great shame the course closed. I remember I was doing a summer job at the time in June 1981 when I heard the news on one of the Radio 2 Sportsdesk reports that Stockton racecourse was closing with immediate effect.These are one or two nuggets from the Stockton website:
Stockton Racecourse was situated on the banks of the River Tees. The first meeting took place in September 1855 and the last meeting took place in June 1981. The views of the racecourse show the old and the new stands, the turnstile block and the bar. The stands remain, although they are part of a Leisure Centre that was built on the site of the racecourse.
These pictures are of the last – at least the third – Stockton Race Course and became the site of the Teesside Park Shopping Centre. The original course was on the south bank of the Tees where the Teesdale site has been developed and the second was a bit out of Stockton at Bishopton.
Brian John Chunn
I remember leading up at Stockton on a few occasions in the late 70"s,the most memorable day being when i was apprentice to Duncan Sasse,we had 2 runners,my horse Lindberg and subsequent 2000 guineas winner Roland Gardens."Roland" ran in the Roseberry stakes a conditions race,we knew he was not 100% fit but still expected him to win,he finished 3rd to a good horse of Peter Walwyns called Camden Town,me,Duncan and Ian(Beatle)Townley were devastated but Frankie Durr who rode him just asked "why the long faces,he will win the guineas" and so he did.I remember we slept in an old tote building just rows of beds and no privacy at all,as was the norm in those days.I must add that i believe the course was/is a sad loss a good galloping fair track.Steve Harland
I only ever went once to Teesside Park (Stockton)for horse racing about 1976. It never seemed to draw any decent crowds, people preferring day trips out to more picturesque locations at Redcar, Ripon or Thirsk. I could never see the attraction of flat racing myself much preferring the National Hunt version. Occasionally it used to be featured on ITVs "World of Sport" but that was as good as it got. I didn"t know anything about the sport but remember picking a horse called "Ponmaysoul" in the selling handicap hurdle and the bugger won at 33-1. It was apparently the only race the horse ever won! Seeing the photographs brings back memories of going down "the wilderness road" AKA "Stockton Road" on the way to Cleveland Park in Middlesbrough for speedway racing – a much more satisfying alternative.Ken Howells
I led up at Stockton a few times too Brian, a bit earlier though fifties and sixties – Frankie Durr rode a few winners for us(Bill Duttons stable)Frankie could have made it as a pro fighter he was really good. I had my first ride in public there (The Mandale Apprentice Stakes – oddly enough I had my last ride there also in the Acklam Plate – I say oddly enough because I have finished up living in Mandale Rd -Acklam a memento of those two rides. Stockton used to attract really good horses then from all over the country because it was before artificial watering and the going rarely got too firm. Many a classic winner was prepared there.
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