Forum Replies Created
- Posts
Weaver is ridden with verbal ticks and pads out his comments with the same cliches :
‘Up on the front end’
‘On this particular occaision’
‘Up at the highest level’
‘Up over the line’He also does a tiresome line in trying to tease Cumani with some old school flavoured sexist sounding put downs when she tries to engage with him.
He’s not the worst ( Mulrennan,Green and Mayor take that prize) but like the rest of the ITV team he’s become complacent and lazy. Time for a change .
‘Adele Mulrennan, Leona Mayor and Natalie Green I’m afraid add the sum total of zero to the ITV racing coverage ……tokenism at its very worst ….
McCoy was being provocative and ridiculous yesterday when he said he didn’t care about Tiger Roll not being in the Grand National because 3 modern day Nationals don’t compare with the 3 Rummy ones.
Academic and forensic comparisons with Red Rum are for AFTER the achievement and not before…. what we shouldn’t care about is giving attention to Michael O’Leary’s typically unsporting and cynical stunt in depriving us all of what would be one of the all time great sporting endeavours.
McCoy revealed his continuing ,odd and arrogant self obsession when Ruby Walsh (somewhat unkindly and randomly answered the point by referring to McCoys own records as being there to be beaten (just as Red Rum’s may be ) by saying he hopes he’s dead when that happens.
McCoy is becoming even more of a write off in TV punditry terms based on this childish behaviour.
Idiotic.
Cumani sounds like she’s going through the motions…..but very badly.
If you didnt know she had a strong connection with the sport you’d never guess. Sounds utterly disinterested and opinionless and nowehere near the required standard to anchor the show on what should be presented as a big day.
Anyone else in the team picked at random could do it better.I feel that going into a panic because the Irish dominated this year’s Cheltenham smacks of English exceptionalism which tends to emerge whenever the mighty English get beaten at anything….as if England expects and has a divine right to win everything.
Henderson,Nicholls,King,Skelton,Twiston Davies,Tizzard,Hobbs are all still who they are but for whatever reason they didn’t have good Cheltenham’s ,I don’t see a crisis just because of that as much as I see it as one of those things that could ‘just happen’ in any particular year.
Racing journalists like having something to catastrophise about and talk the sport into the ground over and racing people love the excuse to jump on the more prize money bandwagon as if it’s the magic solution to every problem in the sport when in fact better prize money away from the top tier events would be better for the long term health of the sport.
Not interested in the possible Harrington connection or who gets the temporary license when Elliott gets suspended.
The stable should be investigated and inspected immediately and staff should be interviewed to establish and demonstrate that Elliots stable is ‘fit and proper’ to hold a licence.
People in this sport who can’t treat horses with respect need to be removed immediately with no second chances.
Richard Hoiles is a very good commentator but he does fill every available second with words and this can sound a bit prissy at times.
No surprise that the Great Ruby Walsh has brought his professional approach to his punditry by clearly doing his homework to the extent that even the barely interested McCoy is starting to raise his game in order to not look terrible by comparison.
The Walsh sense of humour has always sounded limited to one-way traffic and a bit prickly ( Chamberlin sounds terrified of him half the time) but the insight and expertise is top class even working from home.
Chapman’s latest trick of utterly fake shrieking of late market moves just before the off makes me yearn for the late great McCririck who could generate genuine added excitement by doing the same thing ,but Chapman just cheapens everything and makes it sound naff.
Back to the subject of the thread:
Was I alone in suffering an all time low by Chapman when he began his post race interview with Champion mile winning jockey P-C Boudot with an incredibly childish,offensive and dare I suggest racist comedy mock French accent ……absolute disgrace.
It was mortifying and there have been traces of that kind of attitude to the French on SSR from Chapman previously which indicate a readiness to mock non English people in the disgusting way a very small minority of English people do…..but I’m sure we know the type.
For that alone Chapman should be sacked…..If he isnt an ignorant bigot he is certainly guilty of behaving like one.
Who is Natalie Green and whose idea was it to put her on the Opening Show…..it’s a poor programme and she makes it poorer.Blander than bland and zero opinion or expertise……Chapman seems openly irked by her presence (Which kind of makes up for it a little bit)
Harshthakor , you’ve mixed up Hot Grove with Orange Bay in 1977 (above)
The Minstrel beat Hot Grove in the Derby not the KG.Lester was indeed brilliant both times on Alleged in the Arc but I still wince every time I see how he rode Alleged in the ‘77 St Leger ….terribly crude ride in going to the front way too early and getting beat by the inferior Dunfermline ….the great Lester’s worst high profile ride.
I for one don’t think multiple O’Brien runners is the answer to this and isn’t there a deeper problem here than ‘lack of guts?’by other trainers ?
Others will know more but I feel like there has been a drift away from 12 furlong horses being as sought after for Flat breeding purposes and the dominance of Gallileo and Coolmore ( not least through multiple runners in the classics ) has meant that other stallions don’t get the opportunity to prove themselves as sires of 12 furlong horses and the sector goes into downward spiral.
The Derby isn’t the pinnacle target it once was and there isn’t the same desire to prove that the best 3 year old can stay 12 furlongs because all that awaits is a career as a NH stallion.
Races that fall apart like the KG has should be postponed and rescheduled or skipped for the season unless a field worthy of the race’s tremendous history and standing can be assembled.Worrying.
Credit where it’s due .I just watched Chapman challenge Oisin Murphy to step outside of the bland guarded stream of consciousness that comes out of his mouth these days and actually give an honest opinion about something.
Well done Matt,needed doing,Murphy has been media trained to within an inch of his life and it’s turned him into a PR puppet with nothing meaningful to say.Annoying.
More than happy with ITV coverage overall but agree that Chapman is a boorish bore and that Cumani has no passion for jump racing and is too bland regardless of code .Walsh brings out a more engaged side of McCoy.
Not involved at Cheltenham but somebody called Natalie Green has appeared as a presenter a couple of times and I don’t know who she is or more importantly who she knows but it can’t be possible to convey less interest or passion for the sport.Worryingly bad.
Love her or hate her there is no doubting Alice Plunkett’s passion and interest in the game.
ITV’s worst fault is that they always muck about with the replays of finishes when they show highlights etc.God help you if you miss the finish as it happened on any day because you’ll never get to see it as it was first shown ever again.
I’m afraid Fran Berry is not a good pundit.Monotone voice and not very insightful comments.
Couldn’t believe that Japan went off at 5/1 because he has looked potentially top class since Ascot and the tactics of sacrificing Circus Max in order to get Crystal Ocean ‘at it’ too early were spot on.
Some of the post race reaction makes it sound like Crystal Ocean under performed and even if strict form analysis could demonstrate that Japan absolutely belongs in every G1 race from 10-12 furlongs between now and the end of the season as does the mighty Crystal and its no surprise to me that he is absolutely in that class and that he did what he did.
Really disappointing in this era of social media and rapid communication that businesses that behave as disgustingly as a few of the ones mentioned in the Panorama programme aren’t immediately subjected to being boycotted and brought to their knees financially.
I would like to think that 99% of people would object to companies that prey on vulnerable and addicted people to make their profits. Utterly contemptible and should be actionable.
