That was absolutely the worst Morning Line I've ever seen.  Shocking from all concerned.  They can't think they've done their best for British Racing there, although the way the show was framed it's a wonder BCD got any mention at all.  Obviously having it at Cheltenham ruled out having Nick Luck, McGrath or anyone with anything interesting to say, as they'll all be at Ascot, so that was the biggest mistake.....but clearly the top of the production tree couldn't stomach doing a proper job on a meeting they're not covering.  I'd imagine those in charge at the Levy Board are scratching their heads this morning and wondering why they're thumping six figures of industry money into that nonsense.

No disrespect to Cheltenham (although Ed G would surely admit he's not top billing today) but there was a massive opportunity to capitalise on the unwanted attention racing has had this week by doing a proper job on the whip furore and properly explain the issues (on both sides of the fence) to the GBP, after which a full  preview of BCD should have taken up the majority of the rest of the programme.  They blew it and it was nothing short of embarrassing.

Tanya's not done a lot wrong there imo. 

I'm sure, when discussing the leading hurdlers going chasing, she might have remembered Peddlers Cross, which the three experts in the studio failed to do.

This is nothing to do with on screen staff anyway.

As always I turned off immediately I saw LG was presenting it and it seems I didn't miss much.

Excellent posts from denathorn and The Headmaster.

The ML in its present format cannot be allowed to continue. Its a facile show, trying to aim at both those interested in racing and those it wishes to encourage to racing. The problem is - and it should be staring them in the face - its missing both targets by a country mile.Question is - are they bothered? If not,then we the viewers, can expect to be fed warmed up/dumbed down trash, more suited to an obscure daytime magazine satellite channel.

The problem is that the programme consists almost entirely of what would be considered 'padding' on similar sports programmes. The guest test, competitions, Sam Thomas' 'dark horses', a chat with Freddie Williams' daughter, what the papers say, etc - all perfectly reasonable things to pad out a programme in a thin week or to fill in any gaps once the main event(s) has been analysed, but to use these things (as the ML does) as the basis of the programme is bonkers.

They don't even have to look very far to find a model or two on which to base the ML; the World Cup rugby on ITV, football on Sky Sports and the best of all imo, F1 motor racing on the BBC (and I hate F1 btw). These shows spend virtually the whole programmme focussed on the main event. They manage to appeal to a mass audience yet without patronising core followers of the sport. I don't understand why they find this model so difficult to adopt on the ML.

just awful

We all know it's tired, lazy and full of nepotism.

But to have a big day like this, and think to yourself, 'I know, let's bring in Alice Plunkett' is beyond all reasoning, imo...

The rot set in when they extended it from a half hour to fifty minutes a few years back

They seemed to be struggling to fill in the extra time from the outset

However its got progessively worse and since the revamp its become car crash TV

I imagine they would be struggling to get 10,000 viewers particularly with the rugby on the other channel

Have to say BBC coverage today was brilliant. Totally trounced C4 as they focused on the races today. Much better from them. Hope C4 and the morning line take note.