I agree that the new…it is almost six months old..Channel 4 set-up remains a work in progress though I think Graham Cunningham’s incisive comments are a bonus. What would help was if we saw Clare Balding more often. She is supposedly the head honcho but her broadcasting talent, which is rightly being rewarded at the academy TV awards tonight, is spread too widely and with the BT channel even more so. Racing coverage needs to see its programme anchors regularly. The old C4 set-up was perfect from that point of view. When Clare is on duty there is an added gravitas to the show…and yes I believe she was right to ask that question after the Guineas. Had she avoided it, she and the programme would have been rightly criticised.
I’m glad some people think Clare Balding adds something to the mix, it proves that one man’s meat is another’s poison. I can’t agree that she adds Gravitas though, she comes across as quoting verbatim from something like the Racing Post or Timeform. The output is predictable and she has never said anything that helped me to find a winner. To be honest I watch most of Channel 4 Racing with the sound turned off. I study the races in great depth before I bet and most of what the presenters are saying is not news to me. I fully realise that many viewers are more casual in approach and may find what is being said interesting but for me it is often surplus to requirements.
It is not all bad though, I thought Jim McGrath, who I respect from the form perspective made two excellent observations that would have been rather more useful for the punter if he had made them much earlier than just before the off. On the 2000 Guineas front he warned that if Toronado had not made as much progress as it perhaps looked in The Craven, then he didn’t have a prayer of beating Dawn Approach. That proved to be very much the case. Then, before the 1000 Guineas he opined that, although everyone was assuming that Hot Snap would come on a ton for her first run of the season, sometimes the first race of the season can actually knock a horse back, and that some of Henry Cecil’s hadn’t progressed for their seasonal debuts. Again, those words were prophetic and would have been way more useful if flagged up much earlier.
Still, if it’s people poking microphones in rudely you want, Clare is definitely the kiddie for it.
ps Can anyone confirm or refute the urban legend that Clare once presented a marital aid to the Queen as a birthday present, with the words "May it please your Majesty"?