Forum Replies Created
- Posts
It’s absolutely ludicrous to have two courses that are so ridiculously close to each other, Goodwood and Fontwell, racing on the same evening, even if one of them is Flat and the other National Hunt.
If one meeting had been in the afternoon and the other in the evening, you could nearly justify it. That has happened at places like Hexham and Newcastle and at Doncaster and York.
The evening clash deprives local people, some of whom might like to go to both meetings, from doing so and it will no doubt result in reduced crowds for both courses as they are drawing racegoers from the same catchment areas.
No doubt both courses will moan later in the year about reduced crowds and will blame the cost of living crisis when, in reality, crazy programming like this will just make things worse.
It’s also an inconvenience for people like locally-based bookmakers, who will have to decide whether to have double staffing or just miss one of the meetings, but presumably the clash has been sanctioned by the courses themselves. You just can’t help some people.
Those people who, years ago, used to complain bitterly about Sedgefield and Wetherby racing on the same day on Boxing Day on the grounds that the two courses were too close and it was depriving those courses of potential racegoers will be aghast at this completely ridiculous clash.
Eyebrows used to be raised about Nottingham and Southwell or Nottingham and Leicester occasionally clashing on the same afternoon but Goodwood and Fontwell the same evening is laughable.
It’s completely ridiculous and bordering on unprofessional for Tommo not to use binoculars at all for racecourse commentaries. For him to rely totally on a TV monitor, rather than a mix of binoculars and the monitor, is lazy.
If the camera angles that he is having to rely on are limited or give only a partial or distant view of the field, it can result in the commentator’s ability to give a fully-informed description of what is happening being severely affected.
It obviously shows in the sometimes poor commentaries, as has been pointed out.
I always think that the commentator’s first duty is to the crowd at the racecourse, not the wider betting shop or TV audience.
As the course commentator at Southwell one day, Tommo kept saying “on the left of picture” during a section of the race where the runners were over on the far side and he was clearly just looking at the monitor.
Contrast that with the professionalism of former commentator Dave Smith who, at Market Rasen one day while he was doing the course commentaries, used just his binoculars and naked eyes during the whole of the races, even though he had a monitor just in front of him.
He never once did it the lazy way and just looking at the monitor, even in small fields.
I like Tommo’s enthusiasm and lively approach but, as a course commentator, surely he could use even a mix of binoculars and the monitor, as most commentators do, rather than doing it the easy monitor-only way.
He almost deserves to be left stranded and helpless if the monitor screen suddenly goes blank and he is left floundering by not being spoon-fed.
I completely agree with Cormack15 on this. It has got completely ridiculous for Ian Davies to keep saying so utterly predictably and interminably on so many occasions, week in and week out, over so many months, that he always puts the mute on during ITV broadcasts.
It displays a nauseatingly contemptuous, self-righteous and arrogant attitude that Ian plainly thinks that he knows so much about everything about the coverage, whether about the horses, trainers, jockeys, the races themselves, racing issues and any other related subject, that he does not ever need to listen to a single word that anyone, whether presenter, expert or commentator, says, even just out of interest or curiosity.
I presume that he has all the colours, names and numbers of horses available and has memorised them so that he does not ever, unlike many others, need any assistance from a mere commentator to tell him everything about the running of the race in all its detail. Not everyone has this luxury.
I presume that he can, armed with all this expert and infallible homework, instantly spot any incident and its significance during a fast-moving race with complete accuracy and confidence. He has worked professionally in racing but not everyone has and they rely on the opinions and expertise of TV experts and commentators.
Ian obviously does not need anything pointing out to him, he plainly misses nothing in a fast-moving race and he is obviously not interested in anything or any other opinion that anyone could possibly utter about racing coverage.
I presume that he knows so much about horse pedigrees, form, characteristics, physical condition and everything else that he does not ever need any helpful observations or information from TV people on hand at the course who are often trained and knowledgeable experts.
If so, fair enough, but don’t keep telling so often us in such a dismissive, high-handed way that you always mute the TV. We don’t constantly need to be reminded about your choice, as if you are operating from a higher social plain.
The only opinions that Ian is interested in are plainly his own. He obviously holds the individual views and styles of all the presenters, experts and commentators in complete contempt as unforgivably banal.
Ian is entitled to listen to whatever he wants and if he chooses not to listen to the sound on ITV, that is up to him.
But do we really have to keep reading so regularly his self-righteous protestations every time that he refuses to lower himself to listening to what he obviously regards as inferior drivel that is plainly beneath contempt?
Everyone has their views about ITV Racing but at least those who are critical, whether justifiably or not, have the grace to listen to what is being said instead of just adopting a blanket, “I will not lower myself to even hearing this rubbish” approach, with its implication that everyone else must be ignorant, undiscerning morons for being so lacking in good taste and sound judgement as to be prepared to listen to what is broadcast with an open mind.
Racing is very lucky to have ITV and its presenters try their best, often against a barrage of criticism, to present interesting, varied and informative programmes.
Obviously, some presenters and commentators are not universally popular for differing reasons but they at least deserve to be listened to without a condescending, overarching approach of “I always put the mute on” (no matter who is speaking and whatever they say on every single occasion).
ITV deserve huge credit for the highly flexible way that they have adapted the programmes in recent weeks because of the spate of abandonments.
They have added in all-weather and Irish meetings at the last minute to compensate for lost meetings. Surely something that has been said during all those weeks must have been worthy of being listened to, or at least tolerated with an open mind, instead of being totally dismissed with a blanket muting.
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.
Tommo is, of course, well known for never wanting to commit himself in a tight or not-so-tight finish, preferring to say “I’ll leave that to the judge.”
It’s for the very obvious reason that he doesn’t want the embarrassment of having the incriminating replay shown forever more if he gets it wrong. Understandable, of course, but hardly a vote of confidence in his race reading skills.
The other main offender over the years has been Malcolm Tomlinson, who has never knowingly stuck his neck out to call the likely winner of a tight finish, even if it was blindingly obvious to any casual observer.
I was firmly put in my place on this forum years ago when I had the temerity to express exasperation with Tomlinson for not sticking his head above the parapet in a close-run finish.
I was told that it was the judge’s job to call the result or likely result, emphatically not the commentator. Difficult to disagree obviously.
Of course, a couple of other commentators, notably former race caller Dave Smith, used to try to be too clever and it ultimately backfired on him when, while working in his other role as a racecourse judge, he got it wrong instead of calling for a photo and he lost his job. No wonder Tommo doesn’t risk it.
The reason he keeps going, of course, is that, years ago, his commentary bosses tried to get rid of him and several others, such as Darren Owen, but it went badly wrong for them and, after an outcry, they were reinstated, much to the humiliation of the bosses.
After that, Tommo and Owen became untouchable and unsackable for as long as they wanted to carry on!
Ironically, Southwell racecourse is, comparatively speaking, nowhere near Southwell.
The racecourse is officially at Rolleston, a village some way from Southwell, and a very convenient Rolleston railway station is next to the racecourse, making it very accessible by train.
If you drive from Newark, which isn’t far away, you don’t go anywhere near Southwell itself. I have never once gone anywhere near Southwell itself on my many visits to the racecourse.
I used to like the character of the old green grandstands in the days when it was just a National Hunt course but, after the advent of the all weather track, with the mistake made over the angle of the grandstand, the course lost any character and made viewing poor.
The resident course announcer many years ago always insisted on saying “Welcome to South Well” rather than pronouncing it Suthell, because he said that this was how the locals pronounced it.
Perhaps Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick, who supposedly lives in Southwell as Conservative MP for Newark, could arbitrate but then he is more interested in going to the palatial mansion that he claims is his family home in Herefordshire.
The persona that John McCririck presented on TV as an ebullient extrovert was nothing like the the shy, quiet, actually quite morose man he really was.
I remember seeing him in a Press room on a quiet day when he was not working for Channel 4 and he was just sitting there, puffing on a big cigar (you could smoke indoors in those days), not speaking to anybody and all the other Press people just ignoring him.
I was surprised and asked one of the others about this and got the reply: “That’s what he does. Nobody speaks to him.”
On another occasion, I saw him at Windsor with Jason Weaver for At The Races. They were sitting next to each other in front of a monitor in total silence while he puffed on a cigar.
He also ignored Mike Cattermole, the course commentator that day and one of his Channel 4 colleagues. But the Booby was happy to speak to Cattermole.
I know he loathed Tommo because of Tommo’s juvenile messing about, ironically enough, and behind the banter was real animosity.
The main thing about McCririck was that he was a campaigning, award-winning journalist who really knew his stuff in-depth. His views on big issues were always worth hearing and his paper reviews were detailed and interesting.
A real Jekyll and Hyde and a contradiction in terms. A shy, insular, private, loner masquerading as a party animal and an animated people person.
He was in many ways a lonely introvert pretending to be a larger than life comedy turn. He had a nasty side but a lot of it was pure pantomime and a complete charade.
His successors in the betting ring are mere pale, insipid nonentities by comparison.
I’ve enjoyed the ITV coverage from Aintree and jockey Bryony Frost seems to have done a good job as a guest, radiating the eloquent enthusiasm for which she has been praised.
Luke Harvey always seems an annoying weak link to me, despite being a supposed character. Ed Chamberlin has certainly grown into the role but the toothy and oddly dressed Francesca Cumani seems strangely vacuous.
For the first time, as an experiment, I watched the TV pictures but listened to the BBC 5 Live commentary and was very impressed with the team of John Hunt, Martin Harris, Darren Owen and Gary O’Brien.
Hunt did an excellent job on the emotional Tiger Roll finish. So much better than ITV’s lead commentator Richard Hoiles.
The course commentary team of David Fitzgerald, Alan Howes and Stewart Machin have also had a good week.
It’s the same as everything else these days. Everywhere is being taken over by 20-something, self-absorbed know-alls obsessed with being right-on and “inclusive” but who are completely unable to spell or use accurate grammar or punctuation.
You only have to visit any newsroom and you will see that all the experienced senior reporters have been forced out, to be replaced by 20-somethings who think superficial click-bait dross is a substitute for proper journalism.
The spelling mistakes and sloppy writing are very noticeable.
It goes with not wearing a tie, spouting mind-numbing platitudes on Twitter and speaking in ridiculous faux cool-speak, with their voice going up at the end of sentences, as though they were in Australian soaps.
Watch any TV quiz show with young people in it and they have never heard of any famous historical figure from further back than 1990.
I saw a grinning young woman in her 20s on a quiz show today and she had never heard of the Bronte sisters. It was before her time, of course.🧐
It’s all a depressing sign of our dumbed-down, selfie-obsessed times with young people who have a sense of entitlement unheard of even 20 years ago.
Pass the smelling salts. 😁
I know that Tony Ennis can choose whether he wants to be known as Tony or Anthony but why would he suddenly do it now after years of being known as Tony?
It seems to be a bit suspect, especially with all the changes in TV coverage and presenting teams. Perhaps he thought plain Tony didn’t have the necessary class and prestige during all the recent jockeying for jobs and position.
Meanwhile, in other news, Yeats will be pleased to have seen, I hope, the fulsome praise in the Racing Post for race commentator John Hunt for his debut, I believe, commentating on football for Match of the Day. He has commentated on other football matches, of course.
He’s certainly being rewarded by the BBC for his loyalty in not switching to the main job on ITV racing. Good on them and him for that. Loyalty is a very rare quality these days. I still can’t stand him, though.
Also, in further unrelated news, sad to see The Times giving the heave-ho to racing reporting.
It’s just not right-on or relevant enough to the reading public now, it would seem.
I keep having a smile to myself every time someone hands over to Tony Ennis, who now grandly calls himself Anthony Ennis.
He must have asked people to call him Anthony for some spurious new-found respectability. Lord knows why.
I can understand it for Tony McCoy, who became Sir Anthony after he was knighted (that is usual in such circumstances) but why is dear old Tony Ennis so keen to have a bit of gravitas and grandeur?
He was commentating at Doncaster today and was given the name check “Here’s Anthony Ennis” by the William Hill betting shop presenter.
Ennis does a good job with his race commentaries and I like his voice and straightforward style but he will always be plain Tony Ennis to me.
Bob Cooper made the same attempt at trying to create fake gravitas when he suddenly became Robert Cooper years ago.
But worse was ex-ITV and Channel Four race commentator Graham Goode, who inexplicably insisted one day on his surname being pronounced not “Gudd”, as it had been for years, but “Gewd”, leading to Brough Scott to joke at the time that he “likes to be called Graham Gewwwwd these days”.
Pretentious or what? Where do these people get these delusions of grandeur?
I don’t think Simon Holt will be pleased to have lost the lucrative ITV job.
It’s a heck of a lot of money he has lost, let alone the humiliation of the snub.
He has since been reduced because of his new-found availability to supplementing his diminished income by doing French racing commentaries for Equidia, as visitors to betting shops will have noticed. I seem to remember hearing him occasionally. Ian Bartlett and John Hunt do the same.
He’s been saying for years that he’s disillusioned and fed up with all the travelling but now, when he isn’t offered a new contract, he says that he would like to have gone on for longer, although he has “no complaints”.
Des was the ultimate commentating-by-numbers exponent and all his commentaries were basically the same, just with different names. I have to say that I did grow to like that in a perverse sort of way.
I did like the way he would, a couple of times per race, list the jockeys from first to last, even in a big field.
He hasn’t had a bad innings if he is nearly 70. His replacement, Jerry Hannon, is virtually an identikit version of Des, with the same style, delivery and similar monotone, if slightly higher, voice. He is only relatively young (he is listed as 37 but he sounds about as old as Des).
I’m glad the authorities weren’t daft enough to appoint the dire Peter O’Hehir, with his Mogadon Man delivery, as the main man. The versatile Richard Pugh is excellent but he apparently would have had too many other commitments anyway to be given the top job.
Both will still be used but Gary O’Brien from At The Races looks set to be given commentating slots too.
If betting shops have to lose staff or close because not as many machine gamblers are throwing away their benefit cash or meagre earnings in the hope of making some quick extra cash, then so be it.
It’s a complete disgrace that they prefer to bleat about their reduced profits from potentially fewer people blowing what little money they have in a few minutes than thinking that it might be good if a brake was put on people’s ability to lose all their cash so quickly.
In a lot of betting shops I visit, it’s striking how, whatever time you go in, there are always Chinese or Malaysian-looking men playing the machines, jabbering away and scurrying about placing bets on even the virtual races.
It’s very depressing. If the bookmakers want to keep their huge profits up, let them start doing what every other business is having to do these days and think about reducing their costs in other ways and investigate diversifying and streamlining their activities.
Just expecting to carry on getting rich on other people’s misery and addiction is completely wrong.
I certainly don’t agree that Francesca Cumani has become the “lead broadcaster” ahead of Ed Chamberlin. She had a very minor role at Aintree, reduced to grinning toothily and making only occasional contributions when standing at the table as part of the Gang of Four.
She certainly didn’t seem to be at home with jumps racing compared with her beloved Flat meetings. She and Alice Plunkett did an excellent job, however, with their walks alongside runners in the parade ring. Logistically tricky but handled fluently and well.
In fact, Alice Plunkett had an excellent Aintree, in my opinion, being very efficient and on-the-ball in her contributions, even making allowances for her over-familiarity and tendency to kiss favoured people randomly and to keep saying “listen”.
I’m quite happy to admit that I was wrong in my original criticism of Ed Chamberlin for being bland and wooden. He has grown into the role and does a very good job. I particularly enjoyed the programme he fronted from Kelso recently.
Great to see the Borders course taking centre stage and nice to see the TV magazine schedule clipping of ITV’s previous visit to Kelso in the 1970s and archive footage of a race from that coverage.
He was pretty appalling, Julian Wilson, I have to concede, but I used to love those O’Sullevan, Hanmer and Wilson Nationals for pure entertainment value even if they were flawed technically.
I used to like the hand-overs, with one from Julian Wilson to John Hanmer particularly amusing me: “They’re very, very tired as we rejoin John Hanmer.”
The hand-overs should be all part of it and it was a pity when ITV decided last year for its first year of Aintree coverage that the race commentators did not hand over to each other by name and, er, just stopped talking.
Peter Bromley did the most flamboyant hand-overs in his BBC radio commentaries, with an exuberant: “And they cross the Melling Road for the first time and it’s over to LEEEE McKENZIEEEEE!”
Julian Wilson was notoriously crabby and irritable, ill at ease in front of the camera, and when he was beginning the look at the replay, nearly always said: “Well, what a marvellous race.”
Hammer, an accomplished race reader for form publications, had such a rasping, laryngitis-type voice that he was lucky to get a job behind the microphone at all.
It was probably because he was in the box as back-up to O’Sullevan if something happened and as a spotter that he got his chance.
He did, however, have a role as a paddock expert for the Flat racing and did a good job alongside Jimmy Lindley (“No finer jockey ridin’ today” or “He’s got lovely hands, Lester”).
Quite a comedown for poor old Simon Holt, reduced to commentating at lowly Taunton on the first day of the Grand National meeting, after his years of partnering Graham Goode for the Aintree commentaries, not to mention his Channel 4 years.
Richard Hoiles, who used to do the middle section behind Simon Holt, leads the ITV team, joined by Mark Johnson and Ian Bartlett.
Australian caller Matt Hill has landed the main role for BBC Radio Five Live, with John Hunt wisely choosing the sunshine of Australia for the Commonwealth Games.
Hill has been part of the radio team before and is joined by the versatile Gary O’Brien, best known as an At The Races presenter, great survivor Darren Owen, one of the best and most fluent Aintree commentators, and Mogadon Man himself Martin Harris, best known for being one of the most colourless and charisma-free commentators you could not wish to hear.
The course commentary seems to be in good hands, based on today’s race over the Grand National fences, with Alan Howes, David Fitzgerald and the ever-present Stewart Machin.
You couldn’t better the old BBC TV team of Peter O’Sullevan, John Hanmer and Julian Wilson in my book, with horses like The Pilgarlic popping up regularly. Those were the days …. “as we rejoin John Hanmer”.
