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I always liked BBC racing in those days, it was more about the horses and less “look at me Mum, I’m on the Telly”.
I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I've walked and I crawled on six crooked highwaysIf you want to see Wilson at his best go on YouTube and listen to his review of Slip Anchor’s win in the Lingfield Derby Trial.
He declares Slip Anchor the best winner of the contest in 25 years since Oncidium and the articulate gravitas and authority with which he delivered his judgement left the viewer in zero doubt about the colt’s Derby prospects.
Then tune into ITV Racing, briefly turn the volume up, and….WEEP.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Yes, to think a public service broadcaster once treated its audience as intelligent adults instead of having a two second attention span and in constant need of amusement.
Agree; Wilson brought seriousness, and knowledge to his broadcasting, I found him a proper ‘old school’ BBC correspondent; and I was still a schoolboy in the mid 80’s and thought that was what experts were meant to be like.
I do remember Peter O’Sullevan quite often missed the mid August Newbury meeting featuring the Hungerford & Geoffrey Freer Stakes, due to holidays, and Wilson would take his place in the commentary box. I think Richard Pitman would also appear alongside Jimmy Lindley as a paddock expert for this meeting.
Bar kevin blake none of them can convey racing like the beeb did when i was a lad. Little big bears performance was electric yet bar blake they all didnt seem to grasp it. Weep indeed by how shallow the coverage is.
I’m sure once Baaeed retires and Little Big Bear goes into the guineas unbeaten they will soon turn their attention to “the horse that has the potential to be as good as Frankel”
Blackbeard to conquer the World
LBB got beaten on his debut, Nathan.
On the subject of racing coverage, the whole of society has dumbed down since the halcyon days of Wilson, Lindley, et al. ITV’s coverage merely reflects that general trend.
I agree, Gladders.
I grew up in an era where BBC commentators compelled the viewer to rise to their level, as opposed to descending to the viewers’ level.
People like Wilson, O’Sullevan, Richie Benaud etc spoke with an authority that demanded you sit up and take notice and appreciate what you are watching.
The BBC educated its audience in those days, days which, knowing nothing else, I assumed would go on forever.
How wrong I was.
For years now, the BBC has raced down to ITV’s “Ant & Dec-esque” level across a myriad of topics.
Were I ever bereft of my beloved mute button, I’m not entirely sure how I’d cope.
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"Gladders you are correct, how did that slip my mind.?
More to the point how did LBB lose a race
I had to double checkThe horse that beat LBB has appeared only once since and was made to walk the plank by none other than Blackbeard
Blackbeard to conquer the World
I remember reading an interview with Julian Wilson in the Daily Mirror many years ago. Apparently, he could be so miserable that he had his own ‘sulk house’ somewhere at the back of his big garden.
Tbh, if someone held down the job of BBC racing presenter/pundit over a great many years I’d expect them to have a “big garden.”
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
https://mobile.twitter.com/Ian_Davies_
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"He’d get his buttler to walk the 2 miles from kitchen to the sulk house with his morning coffee only to demand him return to bring him a biscuit
Blackbeard to conquer the World
Tbf, that’s a bigger garden than I’d envisaged.
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
https://mobile.twitter.com/Ian_Davies_
https://www.facebook.com/ThePointtoPointNHandFlatracingpunter/
It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Little Big Bear would get you down to the sulk house in 2 and half minutes on firm ground
the buttler hasn’t cut the grass this week so it may take three minutesBlackbeard to conquer the World
Ian, you came to a conclusion with regard to Dettori after a brief encounter at Windsor, mine was with a rather longer session with Wilson at Bath. It was at a time when I was doing a bit of writing for a monthly racing magazine which meant I had a press pass. During that time I came into contact with a lot of the characters that pop up on racing coverage on the box, I found, with only one exception, them all very helpful, welcoming and polite. Wilson was not, he was rude and snobbish.
I agree with a lot that has been said about the old BBC coverage compared to the dross we get these days. It did seem to treat its viewers with a lot more respect but I think there is a touch of “rose-tinted spectacles” about some of the comments. O’Sullevan, Lindsey, Graham were good but did have their ‘bad’ habits. You praise Wilson for being opinionated but that could also be seen as being dogmatic.
The sooner the people in charge of such things realise that there are people watching their programme are interested in seeing the horses, it is a HORSE-racing programme,rather than talking heads, the better.
Fair enough, Colin, you’ve got to take as you find in this life.
Which reminds me.
I was in the press box at Goodwood in the 1980s with my Dad who was able to accompany me by virtue of my then press badge.
As always, he was is a socially observant frame of mind.
Peter O’Sullevan was stood next to us, chatting to someone.
It was a windy day and O’Sullevan broke off from his conversation at the sight of an racegoer parting company with his headgear in a gust of wind.
“Oh, dear, poor chap’s lost his hat. Oh good – he’s caught it,” said O’Sullevan quietly, a sharp contrast to a few others finding it amusing as the racegoer pursued the item across the lawn.
“That’s the very definition of a gentleman – a ‘gentle man,’ what a nice chap he clearly is” my father said of O’Sullevan when we discussed it afterwards.
I liked Wilson’s broadcast style – though he was deluded if he thought he was a commentator as his stand ins for O’Sullevan were gruesome – but I doubt I would have liked him as a person.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"
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