- This topic has 72 replies, 41 voices, and was last updated 14 years, 3 months ago by
.
- Posts
I presume it’s in hope that the last race will be lucky for the punters and they’ll ‘get out’!
I presume it’s in hope that the last race will be lucky for the punters and they’ll ‘get out’!
Yes, I knew why they were saying it but there’s no reason to believe that, statistically, the last race is likely to be any luckier for a punter than any other race.
Indeed, if they are chasing their losses and throwing good money after bad, as I used to do until I gave up, the last race is likely to be just as unlucky as the earlier races, if not more so.I can’t hear enough of that racing ‘patois’ in all its variety; never tire of hearing it. And the more exotically rural, English the turn of phrase, the better. Also, the different, favourite phrases of the race callers. I expect one day I might even discover what ‘jumping from fence to fence’ means.
One meaningless phrase I hate hearing is "
Doing it the hard way
". For front runners. Because usually, when the horse isn’t taken on, it is exactly the opposite to as described.
Absolutely. There were phrases that were totally and utterly banned from use at the
Sportsman
, and this was foremost among them. "Doing it the hard way" is at best lazy, and at worst racing-illiterate.
Front-running is not a uniquely exhausting race tactic if the practitioner is racing sparingly out in front; nor is it uniquely stressful for that horse if it’s a preferred or best-suiting tactic.
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
"
He didn’t deserve that…
"
I foam at the mouth whenever I hear that said about a horse that has just taken a fall. When
does
a horse deserve it?
‘the railway fences at Sandown, a real test’ –
Are they?
Yes, especially if you meet the first one all wrong.
Hang on, there’s another, I think!
Every jockey must feel they are different to another jockey. Every trainer must surely realise that each jockey has different strengths, weaknesses, thought processes etc. It must be accepted in racing ?
So who the hell do commentators and analysts – even top jocks like Mick Fitz – comment that a jockey has missed a winner through injury when a horse they would have rode finishes first ?! They never comment when the jockey who replaced the injured / suspended jockey doesn’t win.
They make it sound as if they’re all the same. Annoys me. Just a horse racing platitude – and i think we’ve enough of those.
At the minute Stewart Machin’s insistence on using a pun to describe every winner is annoying.
Usually it relates to the name of the horse – so if for example lightning strike won at ascot on friday he’d be all over the "and lightning strikes again – its lightning strike" type comment.
like him as a commentator if he could stop the need to do this lol
Afarid Aussie McGrath’s commentaries just annoy. One inaccruate cliche after another!
At the minute Stewart Machin’s insistence on using a pun to describe every winner is annoying.
Usually it relates to the name of the horse – so if for example lightning strike won at ascot on friday he’d be all over the "and lightning strikes again – its lightning strike" type comment.
like him as a commentator if he could stop the need to do this lol
Afarid Aussie McGrath’s commentaries just annoy. One inaccruate cliche after another!
And as they go to the first, it’s Marsh Warbler, from Abergavenny, and….back in the field we have….in the red cap….and in midfield goes Brampour…and on the outside there’s Act Of Kalanisi…and jumping the third, they’re all over it safely.
Two flights gone and he’s mentioned a quarter of the field.
My equestrian hell is a Grand National commentary from McGrath and GG on repeat.
" And look at this one coming with a wet sale….and look at this one on the outside "
Afraid Aussie McGrath’s commentaries just annoy. One inaccurate cliche after another!
Watched the video of the At The Races coverage from Ascot on Friday, when Jim McGrath was the course commentator.
In the first race, he had had said "further back in the field" and "further back" twice before the runners had barely run a couple of furlongs.
I gave up counting after that. I’m sure he really must be being paid by the number of times he says "further back in the field".
It’s incredible the number of times he said it during that meeting.
The trouble is, when he first started commentating in this country, he was such a novelty and introduced so many new phrases that all the others started copying him and saying them as well.
Nowadays, nobody "passes the winning post" or "passes the stands" any more. It’s compulsory for it to be "passes the judge".
The same day, at Uttoxeter, Stewart Machin must have been being paid for the number of times he said "the 16-times champion jockey" for Tony McCoy, or just "AP" as he insists on saying, without the surname.
Others do it as well. It’s as bad on the Flat when they insist on saying "Frankie" instead of "Frankie Dettori". Machin is the main offender for that two, when he’s not calling the others by just their surnames.
Meanwhile, Malcolm Tomlinson is continuing to do his Jim McGrath impressions regularly, even insisting on saying "he pulls the persuader" the other day.Afraid Aussie McGrath’s commentaries just annoy. One inaccurate cliche after another!
Watched the video of the At The Races coverage from Ascot on Friday, when Jim McGrath was the course commentator.
In the first race, he had had said "further back in the field" and "further back" twice before the runners had barely run a couple of furlongs.
I gave up counting after that. I’m sure he really must be being paid by the number of times he says "further back in the field".
It’s incredible the number of times he said it during that meeting.
The trouble is, when he first started commentating in this country, he was such a novelty and introduced so many new phrases that all the others started copying him and saying them as well.
Nowadays, nobody "passes the winning post" or "passes the stands" any more. It’s compulsory for it to be "passes the judge".It seems it is not just in outlets such as our little corner of cyberspace where patience is running thin with J A. The
Post
reports this morning that his next six months’ worth of commentaries will be scrutinised by the Commentator User Group (CUG), following that Group’s annual review of commentary performances.
He is not at all happy about it. He is not the lone target of this review, however, as it’s believed up to four others on the roster will be similarly monitored.
Lots of decisions regarding retention for Racetech et al to make come the summer, it appears – not just in regard of these established performers, but also in that of the three new additions to the roster.
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
It seems it is not just in outlets such as our little corner of cyberspace where patience is running thin with J A.
He is not at all happy about it.
Lots of decisions regarding retention for Racetech et al to make come the summer, it appears – not just in regard of these established performers, but also in that of the three new additions to the roster.
I’ve never understood the lauding of JA McGrath, nor why the BBC thought him an adequate replacement for P O’S
A particularly grating, dysphonic, and thoroughly unpleasant guttaral phlegmy voice in its higher registers towards ‘the business end’
Which could perhaps be forgiven if he were a decent caller: which he isn’t
In print, allowed a breather and time to think, he is capable of knit-one-purl-one eloquence
The spoken word or the written word:?:
I’ve never understood the lauding of JA McGrath, nor why the BBC thought him an adequate replacement for P O’S
I must confess I’ve never understood why the BBC, as the British Broadcasting Corporation, couldn’t find a British commentator as its number one racing commentator.
It never seemed quite right to me when he was one of the course commentators at Royal Ascot and later for the BBC. In his heyday, he worked for both on the same days, as a paddock commentator for the BBC for the first few races and then as a course commentator for some of the later races when the BBC switched to BBC2.
It’s never seemed right to me for the BBC not to employ a British commentator. I know they employed him at the time because he was so popular as a course commentator and had taken the commentating world by storm when he arrived in this country as something of a novelty.
Even so, there were plenty of good British commentators around at the time (Julian Wilson certainly thought so, especially when he was passed over in favour of Jim).
I know there are plenty of foreign commentators in other sports but it just seems wrong in racing.I’ve never understood the lauding of JA McGrath, nor why the BBC thought him an adequate replacement for P O’S
I
I know there are plenty of foreign commentators in other sports but it just seems wrong in racing.I suppose the same could be said about Mark Johnson in America. And Thommo in Camel Country
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.