What betting at Longchamp could Tanya possibly comment on?

why are people moaning about the coverage, BE GLAD its on Free to Air TV!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why all she does is read what's available to see on the screen the main presenter can read the betting odds.

Channel 4 has always over committed itself staff wish and the revelation this week they wanted to have Gok Wan as part of the team shows how much free time they have to waste.

If they just covered the actual races they could show more meetings on a Saturday.

Excellent prize money and calibre of horses and jockeys participating aside, I still don't get all the fuss around this race.

Winner was impressive but I don't like the way the track rides, it makes for unexciting racing.

Jim and Graham were there as spectators and contributed in a pre-race feature with Clare.

Any episode of C4 Racing without McGrath's input does feel lacking. He is easily the strongest member of the team right now.

It's a strange one as to why C4 and the Beeb feel or felt the need to have people reporting on the betting...........neither of the dedicated racing channels bother with it. The presenter of the show reads out the betting if there's anything interesting to say when it comes up on screen...........if there's been nothing of note happened since the last time it was on screen they carry on talking about the horses

When the previous C4 Racing regime, as well as that at the BBC, covered the Arc meeting, the betting expert of that channel, be it John McCririck, Angus Loughran or Gary Wiltshire/John Parrott, was always there at course and they told the viewers the odds of the horses on course and back in the UK.

Gok Wan, I presume, would have been part of their team to comment on fashion at the summer festivals (a role which Brix Smith-Start - ironically who appears on Wan's programmes and is the ex-wife of Mancunian nutcase/rant 'n raver Mark E Smith of The Fall - filled at Royal Ascot this summer).

As for showing more meetings on a Saturday, how many meetings would you show and how many races would you show from each meeting, given you have a limited (2 and a half hours) window?

It's one of the meetings that does need a betting expert. The PMU and the British bookies can vary wildly and a betting expert will point you as who to bet with.

They usually show 2 to 3 meetings and 7 or 8 races. in fact this coming Saturday they are showing 8 races from 2 meetings in 2 hours. I like the post and pre race analysis and I am sure racing fans do too, so this is just about right.

Agree 100%. We could do with more racing on normal TV in the afternoon instead of some of the other tripe.

So putting both odds on the screen would not be enough for the viewer to make up his/her mind? You might as well be in the London sudio to comment on odds from two different sources. Tanya's and John Mac's job was to comment on the odds fluctuations on course which viewers could not see.

Yes she could have done it perfectly well from the London studio.

You are assuming that the viewer by just seeing the on-screen graphic would know how to place a bet on the PMU?

. . . and that would be explained by the on-site expert?

Thought they did a good job with British Champions day.
Some discussion as to why they didn't show Cheltenham but I feel it was the right thing to do.

i think they could of shown 2 races from cheltenham.... because on a saturday where they normally show 7 or 8 races, sometimes 9 they showed 5.....

They spend too much time talking twaddle in between races there were 35 minutes between races plenty of time to fit in some from Cheltenham and maybe another course.

Since the new C4 started they have done a few Saturdays of one meeting and it's not fair on the other courses who used to get the publicity.

Hear hear


Champions Day is the richest single days racing in this country, so deserves stand-alone terrestrial tv coverage, like the Grand National and the Derby, and worthy of the money C4 paid to be the sole terrestrial broadcaster of horse racing, rather than the samey diet of handicaps which clutter up the regular Saturday afternoon C4 coverage (which viewers are deserting in their droves).

And funny/sad thing is, he was the weakest in the old team.
He has been so fortunate in that he was brought into the coverage thanks to Brough Scott & in recent years has had a very easy ride alongside the great John Francome.
Had Jim had to establish himself as a watchable presenter as quickly as many others are expected to he wouldn't still be there.
But as you say, he is the strongest of the present crew.
I just wish they would make it more about racing & the horses, rather than just tipping & the same 4 faces constantly bigging each other up.

Agree totally, it would've been horrendous to have Cheltenham included on Champions Day.
But I feel very strongley that the Champion Stakes is/was a race run at Newmarket (for 130 years) and the event now run at Ascot under the same name is really an entirely different event constructed entirely to give weight to a half-baked, highly expensive marketing project to sell Ascot rather than racing.
A great shame that Qipco have put their terrific support behind a non-starter of a concept. So many ways they could have put that backing & support into sound, long-term ventures which would have enhanced the great sport with more respect to all the true champions who have been part of improving the breed.

Was he?

Like a mumbling little spoilt kid totally out of his depth & totally unaware that he has no sense of humour. If he hadn't done such a great job on Brough Scott he would never have made it onto the team. He got away with so many blunders, cock ups & embarrassments during his first couple of years because the 'head boy' liked him. Ok he got better, but few others would have been given as many chances.
And certainly in terms of character and personality. He was completely drowned in the old team, but now is the only one of the Shed Four who has any kind of grasp of the heart of the sport.
So I reckon, the answer to your question is yes.

I rather missed the last meeting of the season at Newmarket in today's coverage. I know there is now a "core" Flat season which starts later and ends earlier than the Flat turf season as such, but it was always one of my favourite meetings for reasons unconnected to and uninfluenced by its modest quality - the melancholy of it all, the dying time of the year ...

Agree 100% Robin.
Also miss the Craven meeting and the contrasting feel.

Any idea whether Big Al is being used at the festival?

Next month is the 30th anniversary of weekday racing being moved from ITV to Channel 4.