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Matt Chapman can get the mixture of humour and seriousness right on ATR, just think they’re all trying to make too many jokes. Following every sentence with laughing. Possibly nerves.
I guess that’s why Nathan likes it.
Value Is EverythingI’ve already given up and gone back to watching ATR/RUK.
Not impressed so far, but didn’t expect to be. Not interested in the waffle between races.
Mid-race comments are annoying, I may well edit those out.
Seems we still have to have a superimposed graphic for the winning line, but does it have to be so thick? Doesn’t really help at all, not necessary.
Matt Chapman OTT (Trophy presentation was embarrassing), but I guess that’s why they hired him – may appeal to their targeted demographic.
Will continue to record and then fast forward through the coverage later as I did with Ch4.
....and you've got to look a long way back for anything else.
1. I’m one of Matts biggest fans but he was trying far too hard. Tone down the chief comments. Also bad mistake on O O seven.
2. Cheer up AP. Look like you want to be there. Rolled his eyes a few times at Chapman and looked p1ssed off. Keep that stuff for off camera.
3. Get out of the rain lads. The studio is fine, have a backup plan. We don’t need to see the lads freezing and soaking. Luke, Matt and Ed battled through it. AP huffed the whole time.I thought the coverage was awful just like the weather, watched one race and turned the television off.
What was the point of having Ed, Luke and AP standing under brollies in the freezing cold and rain, the look on AP’s face said it all to me, does he need the money that bad, he wasn’t enjoying the experience at all.
Mike.
What a bunch of old whinging miseries you all are, go and ask the care home nurse to change the tv channel for you.
Matt Chapman can get the mixture of humour and seriousness right on ATR, just think they’re all trying to make too many jokes. Following every sentence with laughing. Possibly nerves.
I guess that’s why Nathan likes it.
AP McCoy has not got a funny bone in his body, if he smiled his face would crack.
Swap him for Keith Lemon and I think they’ll be there.Gaelic Warrior Gold Cup Winner 2026
An excellent start by ITV. I would give it 8.5/10.
The best part was condemning the booth to history. Racing as I stressed is an outdoor sport, sometimes it will be wet and cold. That’s what spectators have to put up with so why not show the reality. The last thing ITV needed was two extremely boring individuals pontificating about form and analysing races to death. Good riddance. If that is your bag just watch the specialist channels.
The weakest link was Chapman who just needs to tone it down. He isn’t more important than the sport. Possibly they didn’t need both McCoy and Harvey as they were effectively doing the same thing.
A definite step in the right direction. Just a shame it isn’t on the main channel for a couple of months.
Not impressed but I didn’t expect to be as I’ve never enjoyed any sport on ITV. Missed somebody like Cunningham’s insight as the Form expert. McCoy just looked totally pissed off and I’m sure just not down to the weather. Why can’t they have a studio like C4 did? This will probably come about in June when it’s crackin’ t’flags. Chapman just seemed a bit of an idiot but again didn’t expect much else. Seemed like they were trying to get one over on each other all the time with the weight quips etc. Agreed that they did dumb down a bit too much – 9/4, put £4 on win £9 back. It also looks like Chapman is going to be a McCririck and attract the attention seeking idiot wanting to be a TV star.
I will give it time and hope it gets better but this could be a record job and watch in half an hour later.
Obviously I was expecting the new format to be dumbed Down , as it was . I thought it came across as trying too hard ; the target audience being the Yankee punters and those of an ITV 7 predisposition .
I agree with Paul Ostermeyer about Harvey and McCoy . The ” champ ” is a wet fish with humour bypass and Harvey looks eternally embarrassed when not being reverential .
Matt Chapman is good but like first day auditions , his performance lacked control and was typically over the top .
I am happy to see Richard Hoiles being given the commentator role in favour of the overrated ( imo ) Simon Holt .
Mick Fits looked most at home and is a natural .
Nick Luck should have been kept on – very professional in my eyes . Ed Chamberlin worked for Sky Sports btw .The Cheltenham festival will be their acid test . Mess that up and they may as well bin the lot .
Gambling Only Pays When You're Winning
Quite enjoyed it myself, can’t fault the enthusiasm and it was after all, a bloody awful day. Hope Matt tones it down a tad though still vastly superior to the faltering Tarns. Just wish they wouldn’t talk over eachother, can put that one down to first day nerves. Agree Ed doesn’t have the fluency of Luck, but plenty of time for that.
I’d give it a 6.5 / 10.Prepared to give it time, but please, not Victoria Pendleton again. And i love matt Chapman’s enthusiasm, but this village idiot/comic relief stuff is embarrassing.
That ” banter ” about the Chief thing near the end, where they struggled with the midshots and live editing…absolutely terrible. Yes, they can improve, but the fact they hit such a low opening mark for a professionally produced broadcast
Too many sous chefs and Chamberlain was appalling. Why have we got four guys round a table in the rain at the end ? It doesn’t work for the football coverage and it doesn’t work here.
I too approached it with what I hope was an open mind, but like others was rapidly heading to the ‘this is dreadful’ camp. In the end I switched it off, before even getting to the Relkeel . I’ve never done that with C4 on NYD …
To be fair, some things were ok. The feature on Jonjo was hands down the best bit. I quite liked the archive footage (but the shelf life of that is limited). Weights of horses are also interesting – provided it’s not reduced to something like ‘Guess the weight of the fruit cake’! Imagine if we’d had Faugheen on the scales before he was beaten by Nichols Canyon! Oli Bell, I thought, was far more perceptive in his questioning than what was going on at Cheltenham. I didn’t totally object to the jockey mid-race comments – Francome used to do the same, but only in longer distance races with one commentator (the GC for instance).
Some things were clearly down to nerves/technical difficulties – glitches in cutting between features, switching to Musselburgh. EC, understandably, was nervous, especially to begin with.
For me, there were some glaring absences – paddock/form had been highlighted in advance, but there was also nothing that I’d call proper post-race fall out from winning/losing connections. With the number of bodies floating about, you’d think someone could be doing that. It was as if the being at the centre of it all (the racehorse) was somehow absent.
There were some things I screamed at – a feature on The Weather in December and a conversation between MF and VP in which the uninitiated might have been led to believe that VP was the expert in presenting a horse at a fence …
More worryingly, I can’t say that I warmed to the main podium/presenting team – 2x ex-jockeys plus EC. The rain didn’t help, but by half way through the broadcast this had become ‘bored boyz banter’, of the type that characterises a lot of footie punditry, especially on ITV. Maybe they think that this is the primary target demographic?
IITV4 do an excellent job on another minority sport (cycling) that also has pay-to-view coverage for the die-hard fan. It was for that reason that I approached this with an open mind. They use much the same presenting format there– a small podium/cabin studio, with Gary Imlach as the lead plus former pro-cyclists, Dave Miller/Chris Boardman, for incisive comment. The product they offer there is excellent – informative enough for the informed viewer to regard as worth watching but also the kind of thing that my elderly mother will watch just for TV-tourism. That diversity is surely also the target here?
It’s early days, but my sense is that this product will struggle. How many times can you keep repeating the basics (race types, betting 101)? I fear that this will lose the horse racing fan completely (if it hasn’t lost them already). Having resisted subscription for years, as a paid-up anti Murdoch-ite, I’m finally having to contemplate it …
Absolutely awful I
ll give it one season at tops. Racing should be about the horses in each race,then after the race the winning owner,trainer and jockey. Not all about the presenters and what they think. Channel 4 werent great,but ten times better than this lot. Pendleton,Chamberlin,Harvey and Chapman are all dire and AP looks fed up already. The only good presenter Alice Plunkett was hardly in it. As I say I`ll give it one season,then gawd knows what will happen to it.The forced jollity one would expect of a show making its debut on New Year’s Day, delivered through chattering teeth by folk in saturated raincoats who really looked as though they’d rather be at home in front of the fire
Nice black and gold graphics
Wait for ITV4 and ‘The Opening Show’ next Saturday morning followed by seven races from Sandown and Wincanton before starting to formulate opinions would be my advice
I thought it was ok. Not sure it’s something to worry about. We aren’t the target audience anyway. That’s for Ruk which should be free to air
I agree of much of the negatives already given, so I will not add my negative thoughts also. However, one thing that clearly comes across is that it is a rather cheap show, 3 men standing around a table looking like all they need is a pie and a pint, I thought for a moment we were at a dog race meeting. The use of the War Horse puppet is not a good idea as many of the horses that went to war died, a very poor association for horse racing.
i watched atr/ruk most of day. i turned over about 5 min before the last race. heard all the nonsense from chapman. cant stand him. mcoy should stay home in the warm. or pay for a better coat and pair of gloves. dont know what luke is talking about most of the time so no change there then. mr chamberlain looked like an extra
so my 5 mins was up and quickly turnrd back to ruk. enough said
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