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Used to really like to see Francome casting his eye over the runners in the paddock and giving expert comment on each horse back in the day.
Present day, I enjoyed Steve Cauthan participating on the team during Royal Ascot but had no idea why Sir Tony (out for a jolly with the wife) McCoy turned up.
Jsc
Things turn out best for those who make the best of how things turn out...It seems OK for jumps jockeys (McCoy, Walsh, Fitzgerald) to comment on Flat racing but do any ex-Flat jockeys comment on the jumps?
No nonsense views from Francome?!?
Stated many times that he would never criticise a ride from a jockey but told us after EVERY race what a wonderful ride the winner had been given.
Only thing Francome was good for was to give us a laugh along with Tommo.
Jim McGrath was much more insightful than Francome ever was. Big Mac was the man with the no nonsense views.
Peter O’sullevan gave us some iconic commentaries but made plenty of mistakes. And how many times did he need to tell us Yahoo was on the far side and Desert Orchid was on the near side. If anyone watching didn’t know who Dessie was the mind would boggle.
ITV have their faults but their coverage is no way near as bad as I feared when they took over and definitely not as bad as many make out on here.
O’Sullevan was a fine commentator but he stayed on for far too long. He really should have retired about 10 years before he did. By all accounts he was a difficult and prickly character and no one had the nerve to have a word with him.
His commentaries reached a low point at Goodwood when he referred to a horse owned by Lord Howard de Walden by the wrong name for most of a long distance race which it was leading. I think someone must have plucked up the courage to whisper the right name to him as the field entered the last two furlongs.
Julian Wilson always claimed that O’Sullevan told him he was going to retire to let Wilson take over as commentator but then went back on his word. O’Sullevan claims Wilson misunderstood. Whatever the rights and wrongs, it meant they had a difficult relationship. Wilson did not miss the chance to criticise O’Sullevan in the obituary he wrote for The Guardian.
He also got Nortons Coin’s name wrong for virtually all of a grade 3 at Cheltenham in April one year.
Do ITV Racing think no one has ever bought a drink at an outdoor event before?
They broadcast the experience as if discovering life on another planet.
I’ve got it on mute, so wouldn’t know, but I’d have my biggest bet of the year the actual price of said beverage didn’t crop up.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Doubt they would get much change out of a tenner
Gaelic Warrior Gold Cup Winner 2026
For those on mute and hard of lip reading
Bjorn Nielsen has just declared that he will be riding Stradivarius next time outGaelic Warrior Gold Cup Winner 2026
Thanks Nathan, I was trying to lip read but I thought I got something about Stradivarius being “Bjorn again” and his next appearance being as part of an ABBA tribute act?
Many thanks for clearing it up.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"I did!
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
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https://www.facebook.com/ThePointtoPointNHandFlatracingpunter/
It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Perhaps I don’t see enough of the channel but the paddock scenes allowing one to see the horses up close seem to be getting shorter?
Unless it’s the feature race and/or not many runners if you get to see half a dozen you are doing well with ‘the team’ seeming much more likely to waffle with owners/trainers/connections which may be nice for them to appear ‘on the telly’ but rarely are informative or objective.
good luck to all‘good luck to all’
The Kid sums up the service in a few words.
I try to watch everything on mute now – concerts can be challenging – Jagger’s a cinch wid dem big easy to read lips, but Bronx rap is slightly off my radar and Chief keef might as well be talking out of a dustbin with the lid on. If the weather is pleasant I might take my earplugs for a perambulation.
Ed Chamberlin appears to be getting worse, his presentation is littered with errors, the sort you wouldn’t expect from a lead presenter. He’s been dreadful this week, and we’re only 2 days into the meeting. He spent most of yesterday telling us (must have been at least 30 times) that it was Stradivarius’s last race, swansong etc, when we all knew that was unlikely to be the case. Then he spent the rest of the programme telling us how happy he was that wasn’t going to be the case.
A horse was checked over at the start from a vet with a stethoscope, apparently that was something Ed had never ever seen before in horse racing.
It beggars belief why anyone would prefer Ed to present rather than the likes of Nick Luck but I suppose that’s par for the course with ITV.
Hot on the heels of “The Peoples’ Horses” Pyledriver and Sir Busker winning on Saturday (what percentage of “The People” backed them?) we have this week’s further carnage.
Racing is still about betting for most, much though they try to pretend it isn’t.
If the fav gets beat, romantic back stories about the rag that won don’t get “jolly” punters their stake money back.
Few….care.
Nick Luck is much the better, but even he has a tendency to go OTT – I’m sure he is convinced Baaeed is on a par with Frankel.
The solution remains the same: mu….
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"
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