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Sandown Park, 27th May 1969 – Cloudesley Marsham
Newbury, 23rd October 1976 – Ken GraingerRevised/expanded/spelling-corrected version of THE LIST now here:
http://www.mediafire.com/view/?dzicu4tl1rulzjm
As listed in the racecard
Aintree Mar 31st 1979 – No commentator listed
Haydock Aug 07th 1981 – C G B Marsham
Haydock Aug 05th 1983 – B J Branfoot
Haydock May 25th 1984 – J R Penney
Haydock Oct 14th 1987 – B J Newton
Haydock Nov 25th 1987 – W R W Gilbert
Haydock Nov 26th 1987 – W R W Gilbert
York May 10th 1988 – R S Gray
Wolver May 16th 1988 – G F Goode
Haydock May 28th 1988 – G F Goode
Haydock Jul 02nd 1988 – J A McGrath
Haydock Nov 23rd 1988 – B J Branfoot
Haydock Dec 14th 1988 – R S Gray
Haydock Jun 09th 1989 – J Budden
Chepstow Jul 20th 1989 – D SmithHaydock Park, 21st September 1962 – Bob Haynes
Sandown Park, 8th January 1966 – Michael Seth-Smith
Fontwell Park, 19th September 1967 – Michael Seth-Smith
Lingfield Park, 12th May 1978 – Michael Seth-Smith
Folkestone, 21st July 1981 – Cloudesley Marsham
Plumpton, 14th August 1981 – Cloudesley Marsham
Brighton, 27th August 1981 – Michael Seth-Smith
Plumpton, 31st August 1981 – Ken Grainger
Newmarket, 29th October 1982 – Robin Gray and John Hickman
Windsor (evening), 23rd July 1984 – Michael Seth-Smith
Bangor-on-Dee, 18th October 1986 – Jeremy Branfoot
Fakenham, 19th February 1993 – Iain MackenzieJohn Cotterell was my mentor in both announcing and commentating; we met in the control tower at Tweseldown and the first thing he taught me was the value of silence!
Some more to the collection
Goodwood 16/8/67 – C.Marsham
Market Rasen 24/8/74 – J.Hickman
Fontwell 25/2/75 – C.Marsham
Carlisle 27/9/75 – J.Branfoot
Haydock 1/12/77 – M.Seth-Smith
Worcester 11/8/79 – J.Branfoot
Bath 3/7/82 – J.Branfoot
Newmarket 6/7/83 – K.Grainger & R.Gray
Hereford – 12/5/84 – J.Penney
Taunton 23/5/85 – J.Cotterell
Huntingdon 25/11/86 – K.Grainger
Fontwell 29/12/86 – R.Gilbert
Fontwell 25/8/87 – I.Mackenzie
Brighton 27/8/87 – J.Budden
Southwell 2/1/88 – R.Gray
Brighton 25/8/88 – R.Gray
Fontwell 7/9/88 – J.McGrath
Folkestone 6/1/89 – R.Gilbert
Plumpton 6/11/89 – I.Mackenzie
Plumpton 22/11/89 – B.Friend James
Fontwell 28/5/90 – L.McKenzie
Nottingham 15/6/91 – J.Penney
Plumpton 23/3/95 – I.Mackenzie
Newbury 19/5/96 – G.Goode
Newbury 16/8/97 – J.Hickman
Leicester 31/5/99 – K.Mansfield
Southwell 25/4/2000 – G.Goode
Catterick 9/6/2000 – M.Harris
Lingfield 25/6/2000 – I.Bartlett
Southwell 12/4/02 – D.Smith
Windsor 22/4/02 – R.Hoiles
Lingfield 26/2/03 – M.Johnson‘Afternoon,
In the hope that Robin still patrols these waters, can I ask him whether the excellent list he shared in this thread many years ago still exists in a readable form anywhere at all, please?
I’ve just clicked on the Mediafire link in order to check whether any of the 150-odd entries I’ve accrued through some research of my own in the past few weeks are already known, so’s I can share them. I’m getting a file not found error instead, however.
Very happy to be advised where to go if not Mediafire. Many thanks in advance!
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.
A Csaky is a completely new one on me.
Replying to one of my own posts of nearly eight years ago, I’m now as convinced as I can be after extensive further research that A Csaky was actually Count Alexander Csaky, the third, final and especially loved husband of the sculptor Dame Elisabeth Frink.
In addition to occasional forays behind the mic, Csaky, who according to the obituary for Frink in the Independent was, “a cultivated businessman who loved horses, dogs and the country as much as he cherished his wife’s work” (in which, of course, horses and dogs featured prominently), appears to have held a permit until the start of the 1990s. I have found evidence of one training success, winning a four-runner Lingfield Equitrack short bumper around Xmas 1989 with the homebred Rawlsbury, piloted by a still-claiming Dean Gallagher. There may have been more pre-1988, but time and resources do not enable me to confirm this.
Either way, amazing what you find down the rabbit hole of t’interwebs sometimes.
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.
I have a old Derby Day racecard that was my dad’s of Epsom June 4th 1969 when Blakeney won..
The race Comentators are down as..
Mr C.G.B Marsham and Mr. R. J. Haynes
Hope that might be useful.
JacThings turn out best for those who make the best of how things turn out...It is, Jac, it is. Many thanks!
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.
Hello again,
Strikes me there are one or two on here who may be able to help me out. Could it be confirmed who the racecourse commentator on this clip is, please?
https://twitter.com/horsevault/status/1569220711872356352
My money’s on Bryan Firth, but having never heard Harry Beeby or Michael White in action and knowing both were still active on the then RTS roster around the same time (if all three not for much longer), I’m reluctant to guess too hastily.
Similarly, who can provide a positive ID for this gentleman, please?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVME0Mk-2t0&t=1s
I’m thinking John Cotterell, ubiquitous in the West Country for a couple of decades at least. My personal racecard archive confirms he was the duty commentator at two Newton Abbot meetings I attended in 1987 and 1989; but as those were meetings from the time I’d just wander deep into the infield to take photos at runners crossing fences, oblivious to the sounds over the PA system, I wouldn’t have the vaguest recollection of what John would have sounded like on those days.
I’ve managed to put names to voices of a few callers over the extended lifespan of this thread, but new questions emerge all the time as long-lost or forgotten footage continues to be unearthed. And as for the number of racecards I’ve scrutinised on eBay… Well, it gets something done whilst I’m sitting up at 3am and waiting for the kids to doze back to sleep.
Thanks in advance!
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.
I have absolutely no idea on either count, but am nevertheless delighted by this footage as I think that, if you look closely at the final flight of hurdles in the home straight, you can see the gorse was dyed green in those days, something I noticed on my first visit to Newton Abbot in the late 1970s and I think was as unique to the Devon track as I believe yellow take-off rails were at Hexham.
Best regards,
A perhaps somewhat less gentle “critical friend” of Pointing – or maybe just a critic!I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Yes, you were spot on with your guesses, gc. The course commentator in the old Newcastle race is definitely Bryan Firth, probably the worst commentator I ever heard in the 1980s, guaranteed to put a dampener on even the most exciting race with his absolute bare minimum level of service and no attempt to inject any atmosphere.
He was mainly based in Yorkshire and further north but, to my horror, also turned up at an evening meeting at Leicester during York Ebor week, when he had been rightly banished from commentating from York.
The second commentator in the Newton Abbot race is John Cotterell, a tweed-suited and plummy-voiced old gentleman who covered the West Country meetings.
There was a lot of discontent among the commentators in the 1980s about the meetings they were allocated and I once heard John Cotterell at Hereford moaning to Graham Goode about being sent all the way to Hereford that day to commentate instead of to Exeter, which was also on that day.
It would be a photo finish to decide whether Bryan Firth or John Cotterell was the worse but at least Cotterell named the jockeys as the horses were coming out onto the course, which Firth never did. Interesting to hear them both, however, after all these years.
Large update on this thread to follow sometime in the near future.
More immediately, however, a quick question to the floor. Would anybody happen to know the precise dates between which there were two separate commentary feeds directly from the racecourse, please – one from the Racetech-booked caller and one from the commentator for SIS/Sky/whosoever else?
I’m thinking this must have started around the early May Bank Holiday in 1992. That does appear to have been the week in which both John Hunt (Salisbury 06/05/92; Racetech booking unknown) and Richard Hoiles (Bath 09/05/92, whilst Bruce Friend-James did the Racetech shift) made their respective first ever racecourse commentaries. John confirmed that was his first go in a YouTube interview with Simon Nott not so long ago, detailing how he’d even done a full recce to the course and back the day before.
The excellent Robin Carmody, responsible for so much of the original impetus in this thread, suggested to me that the practice ceased in spring 1995 ahead of the Racing Channel launch that November, though if anyone can absolutely nail it down that’d likely be hugely appreciated by the both of us.
I’d long assumed that the two streams were in deadly competition with each other, but that’s likely not actually true. They were serving two distinct audiences, one on-course (with a need to refer to colours, etc.) and one off-course (to mostly listeners rather than viewers), and of course there was a degree of overlap between the personnel working each service.
Indeed, fellow anorak and point-to-point/Equida commentator Mike Crolla recently sent me the link to an edition of Channel 4’s Morning Line, in which Graham Goode actually launched an impassioned defence of the parallel services, citing how a merged team would see some commentators go out of pocket and the remainder would be sent all round the country more than previously thereafter to the detriment of their wellbeing.
Certainly Graham’s first point was borne out, with the likes of Doug Fraser edged out of the commentary picture for a few years and the likes of SIS’s Paul Alster never making it onto the Racetech roster in the form we’ve come to know it since.
Thanks in advance!
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.
Jac
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