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ITV won’t touch Matt Chapman with barge pole if they have got any sense (he’s far too cutting edge, controversial and bombastic for a mainstream channel).
Simon Holt is being quoted as 1-10 to be retained as main commentator and I would be very glad if they did even if he can be a bit too “languid” as McCririck used to say. I doubt Richard Hoiles would be chosen over him.
I doubt Big Mac himself will be asked to rejoin ITV. He will be even more doddery and trembly by them, not to mention still being seen as obnoxious and too politically incorrect.
It would be great to see Mike Cattermole on ITV. I see that Emma Spencer is 1-5 to join ITV but I’d be amazed if ITV wanted her.
I hope they don’t bring in a non-racing-specialist or so-called personality host supposedly to appeal to non-racing fans but I suspect they will and we will end up with a huge dog’s breakfast of a programme that will have viewers wishing they were back to the disciplined, if admittedly often lacklustre, Channel 4 programmes we have now.
I fear the move to ITV is potentially a retrograde step. Just as many people regret that the often-criticised BBC don’t cover racing, we might in a year or so be regretting the passing of Channel 4’s coverage if, as I fear, the move to ITV turns out to be even more of a disaster.
I was very shocked when I saw the announcement about ITV taking over, despite the speculation, and suspect that it will not ultimately be good news.
I suspect that people will see changes that will not be for the better. Critics of Nick Luck, Graham Cunningham and Mick Fitzgerald will undoubtedly get their wish and see them disappear but I won’t count any chickens about seeing the back of Tanya Stevenson belatedly, knowing her ability to defy the odds and keep surviving. I doubt Clare Balding will be involved.
It wouldn’t surprise me to see John Hunt get the call for ITV as main commentator, despite Simon Holt being excellent. They are bound to have their own main commentator and will probably not just rely on taking the course commentary.
Hunt was named broadcaster of the year recently and his appointment would no doubt be welcomed on this forum by many including Yeats.
I doubt the new ITV team will cover nearly as many meetings and I suspect a lot of people will rue the day that Channel 4 lost out.
I can’t see what the problem is if the motor racing takes centre stage and some of the horse racing is transferred from Channel 4 to More4.
Surely that’s better than the racing being axed altogether on those weekends that the two sports clash. What’s so difficult about consulting the TV guide, skimming down the menu of channels and pressing the button when More4 appears? As it’s likely that only some of the races might be on More4, it’s hardly a great inconvenience.
Fans of a lot of the sports that have been axed completely from terrestrial channels would no doubt be very happy to have the minor inconvenience of merely switching to a different channel occasionally or temporarily.
As has been pointed out by others on this forum, one day racing fans who moan about minor inconveniences and two specialist channels will realise how very lucky we actually are to get the service, albeit a flawed one, we do at the minute.
For racing to end up on More4 occasionally is actually a good result for race fans instead of it being axed completely in favour of motor racing on certain days.
I have never understood why, if you are a motor racing fan or a horse racing enthusiast and your sport of choice changes channel, it is so difficult to hover your trembling and quivering finger over the 4 button on the remote rather than the 1 or 2 button and press downwards.
Surely if you love the sport, it should be immaterial which channel it is on. My brother loves motor racing and, although he is used to watching it on the BBC or Sky, he won’t have any problem making the switch to Channel 4, even with adverts.
I’ve never understood why the droves of Royal Ascot fans who loved watching it on the BBC, including no doubt many casual, once a year viewers, suddenly couldn’t make the not-so-difficult migration to Channel 4. Surely if you like watching the spectacle of an event, you wouldn’t give up and boycott it just because it has moved to Channel 4.
But that’s what seemed to happen with the Channel 4 viewing figures for Royal Ascot. The Grand National figures have fared better.
Seeing former BBC commentator Murray Walker on the news bemoaning the loss of BBC motor racing coverage reminded me of the time when he confessed that he was often not even at the race circuit to cover many of the races and did the commentaries with James Hunt from the local TV pictures coverage at the BBC studios in this country.
He admitted that when he said “I cannot see from my commentary position ….” he wasn’t actually lying but was just giving the impression to the viewer that he was actually at the circuit looking out from a commentary box. An illusion shattered!
The cross country races are all part of the rich tapestry of a race meeting and, although the purists may hate them, they can be entertaining and have created plenty of course specialists.
I like watching them on television and never cease to marvel at how the jockeys and, not least, the commentators manage to sort them out and make sense of the winding and complicated routes, even with the aid of markers and possibly an atlas and a compass.
They are definitely an acquired taste but it would be a pity to scrap them because of the snobbery and contempt of the people who think they have no place on a “proper” race card, especially at a prestigious meeting.
I think it would be a great pity if Leicester stopped racing over the jumps and concentrated just on the Flat.
There have been several courses over the not-too-distant years that have stopped National Hunt racing, such as Nottingham and Windsor.
When Windsor temporarily took over Ascot’s jumping a few years ago to help out and the action was televised by the BBC, it made good viewing, with its figure-of-eight course.I always think that the loss of any jumps racing is a shame because even a moderate jumps race, with the thrills and spills of the action, is infinitely more entertaining than a moderate Flat race, not least because at least you get value for money with the much longer distances.
Why should Leicester stop putting on jumps races which, although they might not be the most exciting and high-value in the world, provide good entertainment for racegoers and television viewers? I have been to lots of moderate, even quite poor quality, jumps meetings, usually midweek, and have nearly always had a good day because of the entertainment value of watching the jumping, with the likely falls and other unpredictable happenings.
I always think it is a pity when so-called racing fans advocate axing an aspect of the sport which provides a useful service to owners, trainers and racegoers, especially those who like to support their local course, even if the fare is decidedly moderate.
I remember getting slated by one or two senior members of this forum for suggesting it would be a pity to lose Folkestone and Hereford racecourses when they were earmarked for closure. The law of hard-headed business reality had to be paramount, even if it meant the loss of two pleasant and idiosyncratic courses.
I had some enjoyable days at both courses, even though the racing was moderate to say the least. The same goes for jumping at Leicester in my book.
Leicester is deemed in one guide book to have “too much head-on racing, which is no spectacle at all” but I would still hate to see the jumping lost.
The worst racecourse commentator I have ever heard was the appalling Bryan Firth, who used to commentate at the Yorkshire and northern courses in the 1980s but thankfully disappeared with the dawning of the early SIS betting shop coverage.
From the same era, John Cotterell, in the West Country, Ken Grainger, Varlian Vyner-Brooks and the plummy, patrician and military-sounding Cloudesley Marsham, who lived in to his 90s, were others who would not even get past the audition these days.
Their modern day reincarnation is the terrible Irish commentator Peter O’Hehir, who is the runaway winner of the "How does he get away with it award?"
He can kill the atmosphere of any race stone dead with his deadpan, funereal delivery. Absolutely appalling.
Martin Harris is the stand-out contender in this regard in this country. He manages to sound bored stiff and seems determined to add as little atmosphere as possible to races, accurate though he may be for the purists. Perhaps he should market himself as the human antidote to the overly excitable Mark Johnson.
I remember someone on this forum likening Arthur Cooper’s twee voice to that of Richard Hoiles. Perhaps that’s why my heart always sinks when I hear dear old Arthur commentating on French races. One of Richard Hoiles is quite enough.
It’s sacrilege, I know, but I’ve always enjoyed Mike Cattermole’s commentaries.
He has got a great voice and delivery, conveys great warmth and often touches of humour in his commentaries, often adds in little pieces of interesting extra information during them and does a good job in my opinion.
I would sooner listen to him any day of the week than a few of the others, including one or two of the more favoured ones.
He certainly shouldn’t be losing his job on the basis of what people who don’t know what a difficult job it is say are mistakes.
He lost his Channel 4 presenting job very unfairly. I would hate to see him given the chop as a racecourse commentator as well but I realise I am in a minority (again) on this.
The Channel 4 coverage is undoubtedly slicker and arguably more professional than under Highflyer but Andrew Franklin is right that it has lost its sparkle and the element of fun it sometimes had.
Lots of people, including me, used to get exasperated about the antics of McCririck, Tommo and John Francome but at least, looking back, it was often entertaining, if not necessarily for the right reasons.
Tommo, with his messing about, cringeworthy jokes and Alan Partridge buffoonery, at least brought a smile to your face, often though, it has to be said, in sheer embarrassment and disbelief.
My girlfriend, as someone with no interest in horse racing apart from humouring me, actually used to enjoy watching the Morning Line when Tommo was on. She used to find him entertaining but I wouldn’t insult her or anyone else by asking her to sit through the current insipid incarnation.
Francome used to annoy me but at least he had a sense of humour. Jim McGrath has been better in the new line-up without Francome, ironically, and he is now much improved as a pundit without laughing uncontrollably at everything Francome said.
I don’t know why they got rid of Mike Cattermole as he was a very good presenter and Alastair Down, with his enthusiasm and skills as a wordsmith, was a valuable member of the team, even though he does overdo the purple prose and the saccharine nostalgia.
McCririck had become very trembling and bumbling towards the end of his Channel 4 appearances and I don’t miss him but at least he was a character, however loathsome at times. Tanya Stevenson remains the tongue-tied, shambolic, amateurish joke she has always been.
Overall, the new programmes are more authoritative and less chaotic but they have somehow lost their soul. The light-hearted fun element has gone and I’m left puzzling sometimes why the programmes are just not as enjoyable to watch as they used to be, warts and all, in the old days.
Also, think Gary Capewell is worth a second chance.
Definitely. Never quite understood why he wasn’t kept on beyond the 15-meeting trial back in early 2012, and he’s honed his craft further still both here and abroad in the meantime.
Mention of Gary Capewell reminds me of the infamous incident about a couple of years ago when he turned up at, I think, Newbury races to commentate on an Arab race on the card but was promptly sent packing with a flea in his ear by the commentator who was doing the rest of the meeting, Mark Johnson.
Johnson, never one to mess with, told him in no uncertain terms that HE was the duty commentator and that HE was going to commentate on the Arab race, not Capewell.
In vain did Capewell protest that he thought he had been asked to commentate on the Arab race and that he was fully expecting to be doing so. He ended up retreating back home with his tail between his legs.
I seem to remember that it was announced afterwards, I believe, that he had landed a prestigious job commentating for a racing TV service in, I think, Dubai.
The days of Matt Chapman’s controversial but short-lived commentating efforts for racecourses seem a long time ago now, as do those of the appalling Filly Factor competition for women commentators when Hayley Moore proved a less-than-thrilling winner but a thankfully short-lived new voice.
The main highlight of the Filly Factor for me was Yeats twice posting that eye-popping picture of the lovely Rachel Casey. Nurse, the screens!
Graysonscolumn, in his excellent and illuminating blog, which I have just read via his link on this thread, mentions that Clare Balding, with her superb vocal and observational skills, would make an excellent racecourse commentator, if she were not so busy doing everything else, but I won’t say any more or I really will get lynched this time …
I quite like John Blance now
Has improved plenty for practice, certainly; although a tendency still remains for calling too many horses "it" rather than sexing them. Not quite sold on the frequent use of "after that we’ve got…" yet either.
When John Blance was challenged on this forum a couple of years ago about repeatedly calling horses "it" rather than bothering to find out and mark up whether they were fillies, mares, geldings or colts etc, he came up with the lame excuse that it was a throwback to his days when he had huge numbers of names to remember for when he was commentating on large numbers of races for betting shop services and didn’t have time to do basic research like this.
It’s pure laziness now he is commentating on often small fields for one racecourse meeting. There’s no excuse for it. Most of his colleagues do mention fillies etc and say "he" or "she". Some of them use different coloured marker pens as visual aids for this purpose.
Other culprits are Darren Owen and sometimes Ian Bartlett. It seems that for Mr Blance, or should that be Bland, old habits die hard. Using the phrase "after that we’ve got …" is another cop-out for his failure to take the time and trouble to work out whether runners are fillies or mares etc.
I’m looking forward to visiting Chelmsford City in the next couple of months, having missed the boat and not got to Great Leighs before it abruptly closed.
I can’t believe they seemingly haven’t sorted out the problem of the positioning of the grandstand. If it is apparently in the middle of the course, no doubt giving a restricted view of racing, it will be a bit of a joke.
Can’t believe they haven’t positioned it in a more suitable place, although it is no doubt an improvement on the temporary one they had at Great Leighs before.
Still, I am glad the course has been resurrected from the ashes like a phoenix and am pleased to see this second lease of life for the course.
Great race planning to have the meeting on Thursday, April 16 clash with the second day of the Newmarket meeting, although admittedly the Chelmsford meeting is a twilight card.
Hardly a great start to see that Chelmsford has already upset plenty of Essex locals by denying them entry to the launch meeting tomorrow by restricting who can come in that day. Hostile comments in the Racing Post this week won’t help generate good will.
I honestly don’t see why Channel 4 has to pander to the people who say the Grand National coverage has to be presented by someone who is supposedly acceptable to non-racing fans.
Surely the excitement of the race itself should be enough. If people are watching the coverage, presumably it is because they have got some interest in the unique spectacle of the race itself or that they want to watch the race because they have either had a bet themselves or are part of a work sweepstake.
I presume the excellent Nick Luck, with his Harrow public school background and arguably slightly smug or vaguely sinister manner, is deemed by the Channel 4 bosses to be too elitist or patrician in these dumbed-down days where we must pander to the lowest common denominator.
If Channel 4 thinks Gok Wan is the man to add a supposedly welcome populist touch, it would be laughable. His main contribution to the incisive Royal Ascot fashion coverage was to tell every well upholstered woman he saw: "You look absolutely gorgeous, darling."
Nick Luck, with his professionalism, wealth of knowledge and fluency, would do an excellent job presenting the Grand National as the main host, although he admittedly lacks the star quality the bosses are looking for.
If it has to be a non-racing host, John Inverdale, with his easy charm, would be the best bet.
Otherwise a trawl through the Channel 4 list of the great and the good would probably result in a photo finish between comedian Alan Carr, Countdown double act Nick Hewer and Rachel Riley or perhaps Jimmy Carr.
Either that or an early approach to someone at the BBC of the gravitas of Strictly Come Dancing presenters Tess Daly or Claudia Winkleman might be deemed likely to attract the viewing masses. How about Zoe Ball, for that matter? I can hardly wait.
To inject a note of heresy, it’s a great pity that Clare Balding has cut down her Channel 4 racing appearances to just the Cheltenham Festival and Royal Ascot.
Most of the criticism of her is motivated not by dislike of her supreme presenting skills, professionalism and versatility but mean-minded but unspoken resentment of her undoubtedly privileged family background and connections as well as her sexuality.
Yet again, the term all-weather proves a wild misnomer. Some weather, unless the weather is too bad, might be more accurate.
It would be interesting to know how many times various weather problems such as frost, snow, iced-up racing surface, flooding and fog, have claimed so called all-weather meetings.
Southwell has certainly had a run of bad luck with its all-weather meetings in the last few years.
I think the term artificial surface racing has been mooted, or something similar, so as to take away the false idea that they are all-weather.
I think I would prefer to watch some racing, even if it’s poor all-weather fare, than none at all during particularly bad weather spells when all turf racing is abandoned. I think I might be in a minority on that, though, Ricky.There’s nobody quite like Mark Johnson to add some real excitement to a race, with his excellent and dramatic style, but Ian Bartlett can also often do the same, despite his tendency to sound sometimes like a cantankerous undertaker when he can’t be bothered to make the effort and in his less-than-enthusiastic exchanges with racing programme presenters just before the off.
Mind you, my old nemesis, Paul Ostermeyer, regularly used to criticise me bitterly for even daring to suggest that it would be nice if commentators actually went along with these pre-race handover chats. A commentator is there to commentate, not to help some clown of a presenter such as Matt Chapman with his banal chatter, he used to tell me.
Martin Harris might, incredibly, be a favourite with one or two people but, for others, he makes former Mogodon Man Sir Geoffrey Howe seem like the Personality of the Year.
Accurate though Harris may be, his minimalist style makes me want to get back to sleep.
Mark Slater is one of the lesser lights who can actually be worth a listen.
Pleased to see that not everybody thinks Richard Hoiles is great. It was pointed out a couple of years ago by a colleague on this forum that his delivery in sometimes conspiratorial tones is like that of Oliver Postgate, the voice of Noggin the Nog and Ivor the Engine. Every time I hear him, it reminds me of that comment.
I never could stand the over-rated John Hunt or Malcolm Tomlinson, with his fake Jim McGrath style of delivery, but I did quite like John Blance at Doncaster on Channel 4 recently. He seems to left his John Bland style behind him to a large extent and does seem to try to add a lot more flavour these days.
Gareth Topham is excellent, in the style of a budding Mark Johnson, and has justified the faith in him shown years ago by Graysonscolumn.
I used to like David Fitzgerald a lot for the sheer effort he puts in and, despite all the criticism Mike Cattermole gets, he is still excellent and entertaining to listen to, in my book.
You can’t beat Tommo for sheer enthusiasm but we’ve lost the last of the old school in Iain Mackenzie.
Just to prove I really am a glutton for punishment, I still like listening to Des Scahill (exactly the same commentaries in every race but with a different set of names) but, for me, Peter O’Hehir really is the pits. Richard Pugh is far better than Jerry Hanlon of the other Irish commentators.
Tanya, who stutters and trips over her words constantly….
It’s a complete mystery how she got a job on television in the first place, let alone survived the cull. Her presentation skills are non-existent.
I’m wondering whether, with her non-existent presentation skills, our colleague Ricky Lake would consider helping to arrange for Tanya to transfer to his not-so-beloved "dross channel" so we don’t have to put up with her on Channel 4 any more.
But come to think of it, what has At The Races ever done to deserve that?
Once again, it was left to the professionalism of Brian Gleeson to carry her.
I assume that that comment is tongue-in-cheek? I’ve been to pubs in Madagascar that are less "mock Irish" than Gleeson.
It wasn’t tongue-in-cheek, to be honest. Brian’s certainly "mock Irish" and huffs and puffs a bit at times but at least he’s fluent and eloquent as opposed to Tanya, who stutters and trips over her words constantly.
Tanya tries too hard to be like McCririck by pretending she is on the side of the punters in the age-old battle against the bookmakers when really she gets plenty of associated outside work courtesy of bookmakers.
Speaking of bookmakers, I had to do a double take when I saw Jim McGrath and John Francome reunited as a double act when discussing the Royal Ascot racing on the screens in a William Hill betting shop. Francome was complete with glasses perched right on the end of his nose.
The Morning Lines from Royal Ascot have been a distinct improvement on the usual ones.
