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Great piece today (someone may ba able to scan it up). Finally someone in the media saying what most of us have been saying about the National and the nonsense on ITV.
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Racing takes more than its share of stick so maybe it is to be expected that a propensity for overzealous self-congratulation is evident when the opportunity presents itself.
It's a condition that has become increasingly rampant on ITV's watch. Whereas the bygone terrestrial coverage on BBC and Channel 4 was defined by the discerning analysis of a Julian Wilson, Sir Peter O'Sullevan, Jim McGrath or Tanya Stevenson, Ed Chamberlin sets a more effusive tone.
These days we are bombarded with how wonderful and amazing everything is, which it may well be, but the urge to keep telling viewers as much smacks of insecurity. Pictures of horses in peak condition or a sumptuous racecourse really ought to speak for themselves. Maybe it is the sort of output that racing requires on terrestrial TV nowadays, but ITV lays it on pretty thick.
The stewards' inquiry that followed Thursday's Aintree Hurdle was a good example of the excessive fawning.
Here we had three professional jockeys saying whatever needed to be said. Paul Townend told the stewards what he wanted them to hear and Harry Skelton and Rachael Blackmore did the same. You couldn't be sure any of the three really believed what they were saying and they said their pieces with varying degrees of conviction, but jockeys in that situation are obliged to fight their corner. That's the gig.
The whole thing is a hopelessly superficial charade and anyone who thought the outcome was ever actually in doubt clearly doesn't watch much British racing, yet ITV branded this circus as "fascinating". Oli Bell even described it as "high drama" at one stage. Maybe I'm just getting increasingly cynical in my old age, and maybe that's informed by the precedents that dictated there would be no change in the outcome, but dramatic it wasn't.
Televised inquiries can make for good TV, but Thursday's didn't and the day of jockeys being central to these deliberations should be long gone.
Now, ITV aren't the only ones guilty of overegging the pudding and Ruby Walsh's forensic insight lends real authority to its coverage. Much of what it does is very good, and both Chamberlin and Bell are superb pros, but the contrived back-slapping is just too much.
ITV Racing:
For all ITV's brilliant output, the contrived back-slapping on show has become a bit too much
Credit: Alan Crowhurst
By the time the Grand National was done on Saturday, the machine was in overdrive, and racing's chorus of self-approval didn't end with the ITV broadcast as the rush to celebrate a Grand National without a faller led to some rather naive takes.
Anyone would think the race had somehow been cured of all its perceived ills, but we've been here before. It's desperately short-sighted to be jumping up and down about one year's worth of evidence.
Remember, after the extensive changes in 2013 when the solid cores were removed and the drops eradicated, six years passed without a fatality. Then, unfortunately, Aintree's luck ran out and there was a spate of deaths.
This year the tweaks were relatively minor by comparison. Yes, the smaller field had a significant bearing, and the earlier start time, combined with the slower ground conditions, will have helped. Nonetheless, the suggestion that all of a sudden the National is now magically 'fixed' is absolutely bogus.
Clearly there are people out there who felt more comfortable watching Saturday's sanitised iteration of the race, but there are also a great many who felt they were being sold a pup.
It's not about bemoaning an absence of fallers, and certainly not fatalities; it's about authenticity. This is supposed to be a thoroughbred's greatest test and has always traded as the people's race, but it's neither of those things anymore.
Chris Cook put it best in Monday's Front Runner by describing it as a glorified cross-country race in terms of a spectacle, and there is plenty of evidence to suggest it didn't capture the public imagination. ITV's viewing figures plummeted by nearly 1.5 million, and both large and small bookmakers reported betting turnover on the race to be down. Of course, various excuses have been trotted out for that, but the reality might well be that viewers and punters aren't buying the hyperbole. People aren't stupid.
"It just doesn't resonate as a wider sporting event like it once did and the amount bet on the race is very different to, say, ten years ago, which is a shame," rued Greg Knight, managing director of independent firm Jenningsbet.
One of the main reasons all of the asinine positivity gets my goat is that it is conveniently blind to the position racing has put itself in. For the most part, the fences that claimed five lives in five years up to 2023 are still the same. As sure as night follows day, there will be casualties in the future, and what happens then? What more can they do to be seen to be making the race completely safe when it simply isn't possible to do that?
Image link
That is what concerns me, because Aintree and the authorities have backed the sport into a corner, allowing a narrative to be peddled that racing can be suitably modified. This is the slippery slope we are on. And don't forget, the changes that were made this year came about almost as a direct result of the changes across the previous 20 years. Proactively luring a better quality of horse, lowering fence heights, levelling drops and transforming the fences into obstacles that can be brushed through equated to more speed and less of an incentive to spread across the track. It's unravelling before our very eyes, but too many choose to ignore it.
One indisputable upshot is the Grand National is now, as was spectacularly demonstrated by Saturday's result, increasingly at the behest of the superpowers. A smaller field will ensure that much, and the reduced element of peril will redouble it.
Moreover, many of those who have been vociferously condemning the stranglehold that Willie Mullins has on Cheltenham were the same cheerleaders celebrating Saturday's Grand National as some kind of promised land for the sport. You wonder which hymnsheet they will be singing from when the Closutton maestro is responsible for the first five home in the race next year.
It's a condition that has become increasingly rampant on ITV's watch. Whereas the bygone terrestrial coverage on BBC and Channel 4 was defined by the discerning analysis of a Julian Wilson, Sir Peter O'Sullevan, Jim McGrath or Tanya Stevenson, Ed Chamberlin sets a more effusive tone.
These days we are bombarded with how wonderful and amazing everything is, which it may well be, but the urge to keep telling viewers as much smacks of insecurity. Pictures of horses in peak condition or a sumptuous racecourse really ought to speak for themselves. Maybe it is the sort of output that racing requires on terrestrial TV nowadays, but ITV lays it on pretty thick.
The stewards' inquiry that followed Thursday's Aintree Hurdle was a good example of the excessive fawning.
Here we had three professional jockeys saying whatever needed to be said. Paul Townend told the stewards what he wanted them to hear and Harry Skelton and Rachael Blackmore did the same. You couldn't be sure any of the three really believed what they were saying and they said their pieces with varying degrees of conviction, but jockeys in that situation are obliged to fight their corner. That's the gig.
The whole thing is a hopelessly superficial charade and anyone who thought the outcome was ever actually in doubt clearly doesn't watch much British racing, yet ITV branded this circus as "fascinating". Oli Bell even described it as "high drama" at one stage. Maybe I'm just getting increasingly cynical in my old age, and maybe that's informed by the precedents that dictated there would be no change in the outcome, but dramatic it wasn't.
Televised inquiries can make for good TV, but Thursday's didn't and the day of jockeys being central to these deliberations should be long gone.
Now, ITV aren't the only ones guilty of overegging the pudding and Ruby Walsh's forensic insight lends real authority to its coverage. Much of what it does is very good, and both Chamberlin and Bell are superb pros, but the contrived back-slapping is just too much.
ITV Racing:
For all ITV's brilliant output, the contrived back-slapping on show has become a bit too much
Credit: Alan Crowhurst
By the time the Grand National was done on Saturday, the machine was in overdrive, and racing's chorus of self-approval didn't end with the ITV broadcast as the rush to celebrate a Grand National without a faller led to some rather naive takes.
Anyone would think the race had somehow been cured of all its perceived ills, but we've been here before. It's desperately short-sighted to be jumping up and down about one year's worth of evidence.
Remember, after the extensive changes in 2013 when the solid cores were removed and the drops eradicated, six years passed without a fatality. Then, unfortunately, Aintree's luck ran out and there was a spate of deaths.
This year the tweaks were relatively minor by comparison. Yes, the smaller field had a significant bearing, and the earlier start time, combined with the slower ground conditions, will have helped. Nonetheless, the suggestion that all of a sudden the National is now magically 'fixed' is absolutely bogus.
Clearly there are people out there who felt more comfortable watching Saturday's sanitised iteration of the race, but there are also a great many who felt they were being sold a pup.
It's not about bemoaning an absence of fallers, and certainly not fatalities; it's about authenticity. This is supposed to be a thoroughbred's greatest test and has always traded as the people's race, but it's neither of those things anymore.
Chris Cook put it best in Monday's Front Runner by describing it as a glorified cross-country race in terms of a spectacle, and there is plenty of evidence to suggest it didn't capture the public imagination. ITV's viewing figures plummeted by nearly 1.5 million, and both large and small bookmakers reported betting turnover on the race to be down. Of course, various excuses have been trotted out for that, but the reality might well be that viewers and punters aren't buying the hyperbole. People aren't stupid.
"It just doesn't resonate as a wider sporting event like it once did and the amount bet on the race is very different to, say, ten years ago, which is a shame," rued Greg Knight, managing director of independent firm Jenningsbet.
One of the main reasons all of the asinine positivity gets my goat is that it is conveniently blind to the position racing has put itself in. For the most part, the fences that claimed five lives in five years up to 2023 are still the same. As sure as night follows day, there will be casualties in the future, and what happens then? What more can they do to be seen to be making the race completely safe when it simply isn't possible to do that?
Image link
That is what concerns me, because Aintree and the authorities have backed the sport into a corner, allowing a narrative to be peddled that racing can be suitably modified. This is the slippery slope we are on. And don't forget, the changes that were made this year came about almost as a direct result of the changes across the previous 20 years. Proactively luring a better quality of horse, lowering fence heights, levelling drops and transforming the fences into obstacles that can be brushed through equated to more speed and less of an incentive to spread across the track. It's unravelling before our very eyes, but too many choose to ignore it.
One indisputable upshot is the Grand National is now, as was spectacularly demonstrated by Saturday's result, increasingly at the behest of the superpowers. A smaller field will ensure that much, and the reduced element of peril will redouble it.
Moreover, many of those who have been vociferously condemning the stranglehold that Willie Mullins has on Cheltenham were the same cheerleaders celebrating Saturday's Grand National as some kind of promised land for the sport. You wonder which hymnsheet they will be singing from when the Closutton maestro is responsible for the first five home in the race next year.
Good article. Need more racing people to come out with stuff like this. Most of them don't want to upset their gravy trains though. I would love to have heard the opinions of Ryan Price/Fred Rimell/Fred Winter/Jenny Pitman/Ginger McCain on the changes to the National fences.
I have to admit i got bored about half way and gave up,thanks for posting though F.P.
The National has been diluted to a cross country race and the chelt festival has been diluted by being 4 days.
But those in charge will still bury there heads in the sand.
But those in charge will still bury there heads in the sand.
He is spot on
That is what concerns me, because Aintree and the authorities have backed the sport into a corner, allowing a narrative to be peddled that racing can be suitably modified. This is the slippery slope we are on.
That is what concerns me, because Aintree and the authorities have backed the sport into a corner, allowing a narrative to be peddled that racing can be suitably modified. This is the slippery slope we are on.
I did not know who he was until I came across his article in the bookies' paper.
I totally agree with his assertion Mr Chamberlin of ITV Racing of overzealous self-congratulation, and setting an effusive tone eg bombarding viewers with how wonderful and amazing everything is, which it may well be, but the urge to keep telling as much smacks of insecurity.
He also referenced the lack of discerning analysis of a Julian Wilson, Sir Peter O'Sullevan, Jim McGrath or Tanya Stevenson of BBC and Channel 4 about ITV Racing, a bookie sponsor horseracing programme.
I totally agree with his assertion Mr Chamberlin of ITV Racing of overzealous self-congratulation, and setting an effusive tone eg bombarding viewers with how wonderful and amazing everything is, which it may well be, but the urge to keep telling as much smacks of insecurity.
He also referenced the lack of discerning analysis of a Julian Wilson, Sir Peter O'Sullevan, Jim McGrath or Tanya Stevenson of BBC and Channel 4 about ITV Racing, a bookie sponsor horseracing programme.
The initial dig at Chamberlin was accurate and justified but no need to smooth things out by referring to him as a “ superb pro” later in the article.
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