i have come across a fault with i.t.v. racing.

​If anyone should care to corroborate my claim, in the archive of this site there is a piece I posted directly after I.T.V’s first ‘Morning Show’ where I gave the prediction that televised horse racing was in safe hands. In the intervening time I have seen little that has in any way changed that initial view. Yet something came to mind this morning to make me question whether I.T.V. are really being true to the remit of doing everything possible to encourage people to take an interest in our sport.
Without the aid of guests brought in to make up the numbers, I doubt if I.T.V. could staff, at least in front of the cameras, an all-female edition of the ‘Morning Show’, either during the flat or National Hunt season.
Francesca and Sally-Anne, since Hayley Turner unretired once more, are the only female presenters, not forgetting the excellent Alice Plunkett during the winter months. In fact, I.T.V. racing is becoming more and ‘laddish’ as time goes on, which might be a turn-off for a lot of women. (They are not exactly hunks anyone of them) I am not suggesting their presentation of racing is not entertaining and indeed informative but so much of the content has become male orientated and dare I say ‘boorish’. 50% of the world is female and if I.T.V. are to achieve their aim of bringing more people into the sport perhaps they should angle their output at the female audience on more occasions than the annoying ‘glamour and fascinator segments at Royal Ascot. It is not all about which of the chaps is he cleverest tipster, you know.
Which of the male presenters would get the chop if two or three females were recruited in another matter? I doubt if any of them truly deserve demotion to the backwater of the racing channels. But if a ‘night of the long knives’ is in the long-term benefit of our sport then careful pruning must be carried out. If nothing else, it will put the ‘boys’ on their mettle, wouldn’t it?
 
This week, due to favourable contractual arrangements, I.T.V. are able to televise every race over the five days of Royal Ascot, which is quite wonderful for dull old people like me who find the handicaps, and the Queen Alexandria in particular, the most entertaining races of the whole week. I am sure it is the most tiring week of the year for the presenters, trussed-up as they will be in clothes ill-designed for the great outdoors whether it rains or the sun burns down. But like the troopers they are they endure with smiles on their faces.
Of course, all of us would like a similar arrangement for the Cheltenham Festival, which due to unfavourable contractual arrangements they are not permitted to allow us. Perhaps though there is a way around the deadlock that allows the television public to watch every race at the Festival and allow the rights holder to maintain the status quo. What if instead of using the I.T.V. cameras, presenters and commentator, the air-time was given over to the satellite channel, using their cameras, presenters and commentator.
What would be benefit of this, doubtless impossible to implement, arrangement? I.T.V. would be able to advertise coverage of the entirety of the meeting and it would provide free advertising for the satellite channel.
If we are to boost viewing figures and utilise every angle of marketing and promotion of the sport, cooperation of this sort can only be good for everyone involved. The dedicated racing channels may be in competition with terrestrial coverage but should that stop them from cooperating when the direct beneficiary is the sport itself?
 
My hopes for this week at Royal Ascot are that it will rain in just enough quantities to make life difficult for the clothes horses who attend Ascot only to be seen displaying designer clothes fit for nowhere but the catwalk. For sour old buggers like me this always makes for comical viewing, and that by the last race on Saturday the ground will be soft enough for Black Corton to gallop his rivals into submission and provide the excellent Megan Nicholls with a memorable first visit to the great meeting. I suspect he is only running to keep him shape for his tilt at the Galway Plate but his presence at least adds even greater interest to the race I like the most at the meeting. And, despite my cynicism, Royal Ascot is the greatest flat meeting in the world. Which is why ‘Champions Day’ is so irrelevant. The ‘Champions’ get together at Ascot in June, not in late Autumn.