Originally Posted by Darren Lethem:
“You think ? I am finding it very elitist at the moment. Nick Luck is a decent enough presenter and a pleasant chap I am sure but he is so removed from the man in the street it is untrue. Channel 4 have lost the common touch. Its all about the middle classes now and sod those that go in the bookies. I much preferred it as it was.”
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the old Channel 4 Racing set-up under Highflyer, but the new set-up is what it is and I liked what I saw of their coverage of Cheltenham this week. Yes, they don't really have someone who excels at being the person among the punters aside from during the betting pieces, which is an area where I think they could improve, but I think their team out on the course do a good job of interviewing the trainers, owners, jockeys and people who work with the horses. I can see what you mean about C4R lacking the spark it had before the change of production company, but I think it's too strong to describe the current set-up as elitist.
I don't have a problem with Nick Luck, he does a solid job in the studio keeping Statler and Waldorf...sorry Jim and Graham in check

, doesn't dominate and I don't think it's solely his responsibility to connect with the "man in the street" - are Clare, Rishi, Alice or Mick Fitz any better at doing this than him? As for the strong positives of their coverage, Simon Holt is a fantastic commentator and superb voice for the sport of horse racing and Alastair Down's features on great past winners of each day's featured race were really well made and put together.
On the point on Nick Luck replacing Clare Balding as Channel 4 Racing's lead presenter at Aintree from the Grand National, now unless the C4R set-up is vastly different to the way it is arranged for Cheltenham or the other big meetings I've watched (I must confess I don't get to see much of that meeting due to work), how would this work?
One of the good things about Channel 4 Racing as it is now I think is that no one personality dominates - it certainly hasn't been the Clare Balding show as some had feared it would become, she gets about as much screen times as Rishi and Alice do on the course, Mick gets with the jockeys and Nick and the studio team do analysing races. As such I'm not sure how Nick would fill the void left by Clare - do you remove him from the studio, have him out on the course and have someone else with Jim and Graham, or do you remove Clare's role effectively by sharing the interviews she tends to do between Alice, Rishi and Mick and having Nick lead the presentation from the studio?
I'm not quite sure how this will work, I know I would have liked to have seen Alastair Down brought in to do the links with Mick and Ted Walsh and post-race interviews with trainers and owners, while perhaps making Rishi and Alice slightly more prominent in their roles due to Clare's absence.