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Richard Pugh is tremendous, though as well as the bloodstock commitments Jack mentions there are appreciable commitments to point-to-pointing in Ireland (and increasingly frequently also in Britain, q.v. commentary gigs at Kingston Blount last year and Barbury Racecourse this) which I imagine he’d be loath to give up.
Methinks for the time being at least, he is destined to remain jack of all trades (and as far as I can ascertain, master of most of those, too).
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.
I like dessies voice for commentating as stupid as it may sound.
It’s true though that he is full of errors, which of course isn’t ideal. I don’t know his age but maybe he should retirE? To be fair ATR don’t have Irish racing for long so it’s unlikely he’ll be in a job for much longer.
Flicking between ATR and RTE2 showed the difference in quality and whilst he’s heavily involved in sales within Ireland, I wonder could RUK get Richard Pugh for the job?
You do know Dessie doesn’t work for ATR don’t you and they have no control over the commentators?
They could put their own commentators in if they wanted stevie they just wouldnt used dessies trackside commentary on the programme, he doesnt work for atr so to speak but their happy enough to use him which technically probably does keep him in a job.
Steveh31–I know that the Irish rights are not owned directly by ATR, and that SIS are moving them.
I did not know that SIS had the right to dictate who they wanted to commentate, no. Is this the case?
it will be interesting to see how it all pans out.
Twitter: Jackh1092
Hindsight is 20/20 so make the most of it!Dessie has always been poor. Full stop.
Although asking if senility is becoming an issue for anyone is in itself questionable. Or it is for those whose relatives have suffered from it.
Value Is EverythingMaybe a good piece of news for some of you.
He’s approaching the days at the back end of the month before the week that brings him to the days leading up to the approach to his retirement
I’ll miss “White flag is raised…..
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…..’n they’re off”when they’re about half way to the first fence
He’s been saying for years that he’s disillusioned and fed up with all the travelling but now, when he isn’t offered a new contract, he says that he would like to have gone on for longer, although he has “no complaints”.
Des was the ultimate commentating-by-numbers exponent and all his commentaries were basically the same, just with different names. I have to say that I did grow to like that in a perverse sort of way.
I did like the way he would, a couple of times per race, list the jockeys from first to last, even in a big field.
He hasn’t had a bad innings if he is nearly 70. His replacement, Jerry Hannon, is virtually an identikit version of Des, with the same style, delivery and similar monotone, if slightly higher, voice. He is only relatively young (he is listed as 37 but he sounds about as old as Des).
I’m glad the authorities weren’t daft enough to appoint the dire Peter O’Hehir, with his Mogadon Man delivery, as the main man. The versatile Richard Pugh is excellent but he apparently would have had too many other commitments anyway to be given the top job.
Both will still be used but Gary O’Brien from At The Races looks set to be given commentating slots too.
The idea of commentary, across all sports, is somewhat removed from the action itself…the silence of the horses hoofs against the surface and talk amongst jockeys mid race is probably as far removed a reality from verbal commentary most associate with a race as you can get…maybe both the gap between valid in race detail available and time for interpretation of race mechanics / perception of unknowns is too big a barrier to bridge for commentary to engage the viewer in horse racing ?
Some attempts have been made across terrestrial TV with in race commentary by analysts but the task is almost rendered impossible with the lack of data they have to work from.
I always think of Formula 1 with the split second sectional differences (Hamilton is gaining ground on the leader at .2 seconds a lap etc) and driver audio to engineers as a general barometer to measure horse racing against.
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