- This topic has 342 replies, 124 voices, and was last updated 9 years, 8 months ago by
.
- Posts
Doncaster was never supposed to be on Racing UK what happened was you will need to google it for the accurate account but someone at Doncaster signed to Racing UK against the wishes of the council who owned it, the council then tried unsuccessfully to get out of the contract with numerous court cases.
The council gave the rights to run Doncaster racecourse to Arena leisure which helped fund the revamp of the course, coincidentally the revamp took place while the rights were with Racing UK when the course was finished the deal with Racing UK had ended and Arena signed to ATR.
Yes so far Doncaster has been the only course to jump to ATR, Kelso and Perth are the only independents that jumped the other way and Exeter swapped because they were taken over by the jockey club.
the footage of the race itself is priceless
It’s great that there are two specialist racing channels, providing superb opportunities to watch racing every day, if you’ve got the time.
Racing UK seems a superbly professional operation to me. The very limited bits of the service I have seen have impressed me. The presenters seem admirably professional, especially Nick Luck, and the whole presentation and packaging seems very good.
I would not pay for it, no matter how good it was, purely because I couldn’t watch enough of it to justify it.
At The Races is, if you take Drone’s excellent point of allowing priceless access to saturation racing coverage, also excellent from this point of view.
The presenters and lower grade racing, except Ascot, often get widely slated but, as a means of watching racing, we should count ourselves lucky it is available.
I still love watching even low-grade selling hurdles at lowly jumps courses on ATR when I have the chance. As I have said before, I find the spectacle of watching a lowly jumps race, with poor quality runners, more entertaining than meetings on the Flat.
That is one of the joys of ATR. I have been known to voice a few less than flattering observations about presenters and commentators but I would never, ever decry the invaluable service provided by the specialist racing channels or, for that matter, the BBC or Channel 4.
We are lucky to have them all, warts and all. I certainly would never call for any racing channel to be taken off the air (any more than I would call for any racecourse to close).Absolutely! Well said that man
Doncaster was never supposed to be on Racing UK what happened was you will need to google it for the accurate account but someone at Doncaster signed to Racing UK against the wishes of the council who owned it, the council then tried unsuccessfully to get out of the contract with numerous court cases.
The council gave the rights to run Doncaster racecourse to Arena leisure which helped fund the revamp of the course, coincidentally the revamp took place while the rights were with Racing UK when the course was finished the deal with Racing UK had ended and Arena signed to ATR.
Yes so far Doncaster has been the only course to jump to ATR, Kelso and Perth are the only independents that jumped the other way and Exeter swapped because they were taken over by the jockey club.
Numbers at the moment stand at: 33 UK racecouses with RUK and 28 with ATR. That’s assuming Great Leighs will stay with ATR if/when they get up and running again.
Its wonderful , folks on here freely admitting their love of dross racing …but good on you I say ,
For me its the pits
close it ,
Ricky
Its wonderful , folks on here freely admitting their love of dross racing …but good on you I say ,
For me its the pits
close it ,
Ricky
Especially me. I love average and low grade racing.
When you say ‘close it’,
who
exactly closes it? On what grounds? I don’t understand.
Mike
Not a lot to understand. Ricky has attempted to take the moral high ground, failed miserably and chucked the teddy’s out the cot.
That after advising me i needed to "grow up".
Its wonderful , folks on here freely admitting their love of dross racing …but good on you I say ,
For me its the pits
close it ,
Ricky
So all Irish Racing is dross, Ascot and Doncaster are dross, all American racing is dross. Why are you on a horse racing forum if you think this.
Ricky you’re funny
Get one of your mates to show you how to change channels, then it will be just as if it has closed down for you.So all Irish Racing is dross, Ascot and Doncaster are dross, all American racing is dross. Why are you on a horse racing forum if you think this.
I was just thinking today, when I was catching up on several days of racing replays on At The Races, how great it is for me to be able to do this without paying a penny extra, other than my Sky subscription.
Really enjoyed catching up on the action from smaller courses like Newton Abbot, Brighton, Southwell, Folkestone and Lingfield.
Now that I also watch the replays on sportinglife.com from the Racing UK courses, it means I can watch completely full days for free if I can make the time.
The only thing that does irritate me about ATR is the poor graphics for the betting shows and results. Often the names of the horses are abbreviated to such an extent that it makes it difficult for someone like me, who watches the races without a newspaper in front of them, to watch and be able to see the full names of the runners.
It’s particularly bad when there is in effect a shared screen, with the continuous betting on the right hand side. There would be plenty of room for the full names of the horses to be spelled out, if only the prices on the very right side of the betting box were moved a bit.
Racing UK’s graphics seem to be so much clearer and viewer-friendly. Just a minor point but I still greatly value the ATR service as a whole.
On the subject of Sky subscriptions mentioned earlier, I spent ages today reading some fascinating comments from people on Martin Lewis’s website about how easy many of them seem to find it to ring up, threaten to leave or switch to Virgin or BT, and be able to get all sorts of freebies, 50% cuts in their subscriptions and other incentives to stay.
I love haggling and getting reductions, refunds and discounts. I might give it a try….ATR are stuck with the graphics they have as they are the standard Sky ones used by other Sky Channels, the graphics are squeezed up on Sky Sport News on Soccer Saturday sometimes so you cannot read them.
Unless Sky have a revamp of their graphics it is unlikely ATR will go alone and will use the same livery as the other Sky channels.
As I type this Sky Sports News have the rugby on the right panel and they have tried to squeeze all the scorers into the small panel and it’s unreadable.
Mike , its a tongue in cheek remark , I am just being devils advocate and enjoy the responses , some of them a bit predictable
So to sum up , enjoy it folks , and why not indeed
Ricky
ATR – extremely slow pictures, therefore also extremely slow speaking race analysts. Otherwise you would assume a consumption of certain liquids and p…s.
I hope they can start talking a bit faster tonight.Amen, brother.
Lydia "only pauses for breath sporadically" Hislop and Steve "mouthful of marbles" Mellish are so much more articulate.
Honestly.
Lydia and Steve are RUK.
The one I like the most is Jonathan.
But looking at ATR, you have to say that something is clearly amiss there. Can`t say exactly what it is, but I think you understand me.Lydia and Steve are RUK.
If they’re the faces of the channel, God help us all.
Like you, I think that Jonathan Neesom is by far their best presenter; he should get much more airtime, preferably in partnership with Mellish. The latter knows his stuff but can’t deliver it in any coherent form; he’s still better than Hislop, who simply regurgitates the same old hackneyed drivel ad nauseam.
Lydia and Steve are RUK.
If they’re the faces of the channel, God help us all.
Like you, I think that Jonathan Neesom is by far their best presenter; he should get much more airtime, preferably in partnership with Mellish. The latter knows his stuff but can’t deliver it in any coherent form; he’s still better than Hislop, who simply regurgitates the same old hackneyed drivel ad nauseam.
Don’t agree at all re Lydia Hislop she is a class presenter. Steve Mellish (really knows his stuff) and Jonathan Neesom are outstanding also.
The best three on Racing UK / ATR by an absolute street.
Nick Luck, Mat Chapman, Sean Boyce are also very good.
Mark Howard, Martin Kelly are worth their salt.
Some others are tolerable, some are dismal Bob Cooper, Mick Fitgerald, Oli Bell, James Willoughby fall into the latter category.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.