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…back in those days, the O’Sullevan/Wilson duo was very much my type of racing broadcast… I found it professional…intelligent…and yet relaxed….Julian’s interviews were always first class due in part to the interesting mix of interviewees…. rather than the obsession with bookies reps that we see so much today…
I often found myself agreeing with his post race deliberations too, such as..after Dahlia won the King George at Ascot as a 3 year old in 1973… he said ”from what I’ve seen of Allez France, she wouldn’t have lived with Dahlia today’…. I was delighted he said that… and who couldn’t have agreed….
…in 1980, I was close to the Pritchard-Gordon stable in Newmarket…. Mr Wilson was part owner of a 2 year old filly called Sea Aura… as has been mentioned, Wilson didn’t much care for anyone to get hold of information regarding any of his horses… this was no exception, as this filly was burning up the gallops… on her 2nd start in the Plaxtol Stakes at Lingfield… badly drawn in stall 1… she was allowed to go off at about 6-1. can’t remember exactly…. Piggot rode her…
…some of us had a nice little pay day, – she bolted up….…I’m very sorry to hear of his passing…. quite a shock really, whether one liked him or not…
I liked Julian Wilson’s presenting style. Stuffy it may have been, but I always felt you were in safe pair of hands when he was presenting the racing coverage; whether from Ascot, Goodwood, Haydock or Cheltenham.
He readily admitted he hated the dumbing down the BBC were ( at that time ) embarking upon. He was especially scathing when he was told that Boy George and Dani Behr ( whatever happened to her ? ) were being considered as the "fashion experts" during one Royal Ascot.
With Clare Balding continually getting on his nerves, Wilson decided enough was enough. The face of BBC had changed too much for his liking.
I once saw him embroiled in a friendly discussion ( ok then, argument ) with Peter O’Sullevan ( before his knighthood ) on the subject of greatest horses of the decade (70s).
Julian made his case for Mill Reef ( his favourite ever horse ), arguing that the great little horse wasn’t at his best when losing to Brigadier Gerard. Mill Reef was the best, Julian asserted.
O’Sullevan, less than impressed, immediately countered that as good as Mill Reef ( and Brigadier Gerard ) were, even those two would have struggled to cope with the brilliant Nijinsky. O’Sullevan started to get a bit perturbed at Julian Wilson’s attempt to further his case for Mill Reef – you could tell the commentator was a little more than miffed with his younger colleague.
Even so, Julian had to have the last word and said of Mill Reef, as if to say, I don’t care what you say,
– obviously directed at O;Sullevan, and ended with something akin to – he ( Mill Reef ) may not be the best ever, but he was the best in my eyes. The look on Peter O’Sullevan’s face was priceless. Oh, and he also backed Shergar @ 33/1 ante-post to win The Derby and with the winnings bought his wife to be an expensive engagement ring.
Gambling Only Pays When You're Winning
I probably would have appreciated Julian Wilson broadcasts a lot more these days. He was a man for the purist.
Back then I remember that hair, scrubbed face, undertaker suit and stiffness being distinctly unappealing to this early teenager.
Can’t believe he was only in his early seventies, he appeared that even way back then.
He was certainly a passionate Racing man.
Rest in peace.
The only time I haven’t seen him at Newmarket was last Thursday and even then I thought about him,he always just roamed around wherever he wanted with that 2nd world war rear Gunner look about him.I never liked the bloke myself either on TV or in person,he never did forgive me for writing a letter to the RP slating Pat Edderys ride on Bellotto in the 87 Guineas and signing it J,Wilson.He went to the lengths of writing in and saying it was not he who had the audacity to criticise Mr Eddery.Julian hated confrontation and was very much a yes man in front of the Cameras,behind them he was an ‘obstroculous’ bugger. RIP Julian.
I seem to remember Julian once saying he hated Timeform because it gave information to a lot of punters and therefore more difficult for others/him to make a profit.
Ginge you’re probably right, I never really got a close up of what he was actually holding just presumed it was Timeform, from what you say he most likely had a book of his own jottings.
Things turn out best for those who make the best of how things turn out...Nice eulogy TAPK: not sure from your words whether it was you, Wilson or whoever denigrating Eddery but you, he or them had it right: a ‘top jockey’ who ballsed up more frequently than other ‘top jockeys’
"roamed around": the essence and joy of race going?
Familiar faces, maybe eye contact, even a half-smiling acknowledgement, even even a brief word but we prefer to shun that for the solitary enveloping private pleasure – a day at the races
Julian Wilson always seemed very uneasy when fronting the BBC’s racing coverage and could often be easily thrown off his stride if something unexpected happened but he was supremely professional, had in-depth racing knowledge and plenty of gravitas.
He hated it when he became part of an ill-matched double act with Clare Balding when she was starting to emerge as a major racing presenter.
He filled in as race commentator for Peter O’Sullevan when the great man was away and often did the minor meetings. I seem to remember he ended up on It’ll be Alright on the Night after his race commentary during a rare visit by the BBC to Bangor-on-Dee, where he said that the field was passing the stands before hastily adding: "But there aren’t any, of course."
He formed part of the classic BBC commentary team for the Grand National, along with Peter O’Sullevan and John Hanmer. I was only thinking the other day, when watching the highly inferior Channel 4 commentary team, what a great job the BBC did for so many years.
Because Wilson was part of the race commentary team for Aintree, the programmes were presented for the first couple of days of the meeting by Tony Gubba, now also sadly no longer with us.
On odd days when Wilson was in the commentary box, not hosting programmes, interviews in the paddock were occasionally conducted as a one-off by Robin Gray.
Wilson could be pompous sometimes and attracted ridicule for his ostentatiously idiosyncratic insistence on pronouncing Unfuwain as "Uff-wahn". He insisted it was the correct pronunciation but he got ribbed for it.
Brough Scott’s articles about him in today’s Racing Post provide a fascinating insight. Brough was part of a doomed bid by ITV to lure him from the BBC to the commercial channel as main race commentator.
Wilson turned the offer down, convinced that he would not have many years to wait until Peter O’Sullevan called it a day. How wrong he was and how ironic that O’Sullevan has now outlived him as well, despite being in his 90s.
Wilson could be acerbic and bad-tempered and certainly didn’t suffer fools gladly. He wasn’t afraid to ruffle feathers with his newspaper column, which I believe was called Mr Angry.
He certainly knew his stuff.He belonged to a more patrician age of broadcasting, at a time when plummy-voiced toffs were much more common in racing broadcasting. He was going strong at a time when even more plummy racecourse commentators like Cloudesley Marsham were about.
It’s sad that Wilson has become yet another face and voice from past broadcasting golden days to leave us.
Certainly a key figure in my formative years watching the nags, and I think most of it has already been said. Not sure I’d have liked him in the flesh, but I’ll remember him fondly as a broadcaster.
No idea if anyone can corroborate this, but…
Back in the early 2000s, I was getting a more or less personal tour around Aintree’s Grand National museum by a local fella,who I think had worked at the track as a younger man for a while. He was scathing of both Wilson and McCririck. Both, he claimed, would have been happy for Aintree to be closed down and the National moved to Haydock or Doncaster or somesuch.
A bit of inverse snobbery, or something in it?
Julian Wilson was articulate, intelligent, informed and knew his racing inside-out.
How standards have slipped over the last few decades; compare his ability to hold together a broadcast on his own, with Sir Peter as a commentator and nothing else, with the inability of the current flotilla of presenters to hold the viewer’s interest for more than a few minutes. Less is, very often, more.
Rest in peace, Mr Wilson.
Just a few half remembered snippets of Mr Wilson
BBC2 were covering Goodwood amidst the super saturation coverage of that 1981 royal wedding. Julian saying `why not join us for heaven`s sake` no doubt in the hope of picking up a few `any port in a storm viewers.
Receiving a monosyllabic negative reply from Piggott when asked if John Cherry could be an Ascot Gold Cup horse.
`Why`s that Lester?’
`He`s a gelding`Julian conducted some what seemed stultifyingly dull interviews with backroom bigwigs though I was impressed by their job titles.You knew you were ok to take a comfort break when he ushered on Desmond Plummer of the Horserace Betting Levy Board or Lord Wigg of the Horserace Totalisator Board.
There was a short Grandstand feature on Julian being something of a demon on the Cresta Run toboggan run.
He did seem to have a bit of a laugh with Jeff Banks on the Royal Ascot coverage but I suspect he knew then that the quality days were behind him.
– obviously directed at O;Sullevan, and ended with something akin to – he ( Mill Reef ) may not be the best ever, but he was the best in my eyes. The look on Peter O’Sullevan’s face was priceless. 
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