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Luke Harvey confirmed himself as neither a Mathematics, or English, expert, after advising viewers “Epatante is literally half the size of all the other runners”.
BUY THE SUN
What was the point in the feature on last years festival. It is over a year ago, talk about racing loving to shoot itself in the foot.
I liked the “where are they now” on Istabraq..looking superb and cantering around his field like a horse less than half his age.
Advantage ITV is Rachel Casey is somehow presenting the greatest show on turf on Racing TV. Ed Chamberlin can rest easy. Where’s the RTV presenter with the beard or Gary O Brien?
Literally my biggest hate is when people say “literally” when they don’t mean it.
Value Is Everything“Private Eye” sometimes used to do a special “Colemanballs” devoted to misuse of the word literally.
My favourite was when a commentator said “Greg LeMond has literally come back from the dead to lead the Tour De France”.
And closer to home, Lord Oaksey once said “Last time out this horse won at Folkestone, literally pulling a bus”.
There is no other way to describe it…ITV were a disgrace today.
That Covid segment was horrendous. People tune in to watch the racing and the horses, not to listen to the broadcasting equivalent of a suicide note.
They wasted time doing a whole feature on it.
Racing fans would much rather see a feature on a small stable or a jockey getting a rare grade one or fancies Cheltenham ride. Chris Honour or Brian Carver, Harriet Graham, Paul Webber, Rex Dingle…there were any amount of lesser known racing people that they could have used that time to give us a bit of insight into, any amount of owners pouring money into the sport, but no, we were assaulted with the Covid feature. Dreadful stuff.
The social stable is an effort at keeping non racing folk happy…totally unnecessary to be wasting time on that rubbish.
Harvey who is normally ok, said Epatante is LITERALLY half the size of the others. At a similar point he referred to the ‘earlier handicaps’ when at that point there had been only 1 earlier handicap. Small things, but it’s not unreasonable to expect better.
Cumani hasn’t a notion, going on about group 1’s, painful to listen to. I think just a token effort at a gender balance.
Hopefully tomorrow will be a better effort, but not a good start at all.
Ian, I never mentioned you in my “rose-tinted” post. Indeed, I was vaguely referring to myself, though I am sure many others suffer from the same youthful happy memories of World of Sport etc which don’t necessarily stand up to scrutiny now. None of the subsequent posters mentioned you either. Don’t take anything to heart. We’ve all had a drink….
Though the Covid item undoubtedly did the racing industry no favours (and that is an understatement), I think it is worth pointing out that ITV Racing is NOT The BHA Racing Channel.
ITV has its own agenda and thats what a lot of people in racing just dont understand.
ITV is not a PR company working for the racing industry, its not a paid cheerleader for racing.
Its an independent TV broadcast company employing broadcast journalists, which has paid for the rights to cover racing as opposed to being paid to do it.
As such ITV is not duty-bound to always seek to cast racing in the best possible light.
As was VERY evident today.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"ITV is independent indeed and thank God it is not behoven.
I think the piece carried most of the viewers with it.
Self flagellation is a lot less painful than dying from
collapsing lungs, and the abject loss
felt by those that are left behind continues for decades of Cheltenhams.I thought it struck exactly the right note, and I saw it as a repositioning, even a cleansing of the sport.
Self flagellation, a hair shirt, as well as martyrdom can free the burden of guilt.
Absolutely no damage was done,
and I assure you, the dead if
they could speak would give their undying support.The racing which followed was far far purer. Did you not notice the lightness of it, as if a great burden had been removed?
Very seldom watch ITV Racing and did not see the Covid article. However, what does racing have to apologise for?
Last year’s Cheltenham went ahead with government approval. And it was not in isolation. Crufts had taken place the week before – a huge indoor event. A full programme of football and rugby fixtures was held on the previous weekend.
Even during Cheltenham week, European football games took place – including Atletico Madrid’s visit to Liverpool. The following night, the Premier League darts was held in the same city.
All pubs and restaurants were still open. Concert venues, theatres and cinemas were still operating. And millions of people would have been using the Underground and other transport systems.
The only difficult day for Cheltenham was the Friday. The Prenier League announced a suspension of fixtures that morning which left Cheltenham exposed. However, by that time the crowd had already gathered. Even if the BHA had called it off, the crowds would just have piled into the pubs in the town instead.
I think it is fair to ask: why is Cheltenham being used as the whipping boy? It just looks like an excuse for the media to pursue its anti-racing agenda.
ITV will do whatever, in their view, will maximise viewer ratings and get them talked about and raise their wider profile.
BCD means a potential extra 70,000 viewers at best on top of the annual captive audience of racing fans.
Doing a hatchet job on racing and wheeling out Piers Morgan to put the boot in potentially adds a good six-figures to viewing figures.
ITV has paid for the right to cover racing.
How it goes about doing that is up to them.
A nodding-dog PR cheerleader for the sport 24/7/365 it is clearly not.
I am sure a lot of the ITV Racing team were deeply uncomfortable with and opposed to the whole thing, but it wasnt their call and this is what can happen if control of racing broadcasting is sold to a big, ruthless, commercially-minded, Independent National Television Broadcast company.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"All very fair points and made with conviction from Corky and Ian. Indeed it was the troublesome Friday and ITV may have sensationalised the blame to get a wider base. I do not agree that racing has been that harmed by the piece not to the extent of ‘whipping boys’ – the Government certainly took the brunt of it.
Cheltenham could possibly have closed hospitality on that Friday but that would have cramped outside space. I am certain things were discussed.All in all I feel it was well worth airing something about last year, and best done early on the first day.
Something certainly needed to be said,it was said and it is over. People can speculate about harm but this was just a repetition of what the media and News stations have been saying all year, with some added views. If the sport of racing was damaged by it, it has to be pointed out, it was damaged already.ITV racing go to Kevin Blake to ask him his opinion, and Joe Public watching the telly wonder how on earth that guy is, and why he’s qualified to offer his opinion.
It’s not explained.
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