- Balance is key when producing racing TV for a broad audience in the modern era
- Betting on the sport has changed significantly since the days of John McCririck
What about the betting? It’s a question — and a criticism — that comes our way at ITV every time we are on air and it will be no different on Saturday afternoon.
The Coral Gold Cup, once known as the Hennessy, is part of jump racing’s fabric and, usually, one runner in the field will be subject to a gamble when its price collapses. It’s one of winter’s biggest racing events and plenty of readers will have a flutter on Saturday — my fancy is Victtorino for Venetia Williams.
Covering the market, though, won’t be our sole aim on Saturday afternoon. Producing a racing programme for mainstream TV — and getting it right — isn’t easy, as the audience is a broad church and everyone’s interests must be considered. My job is to make the show relatable to all.
If I’m honest, presenting football was easier. You had 90 minutes of action and short periods before kick-off, at half-time and the end. In racing, you might have 20 minutes of action in four hours on air. The horses will always be the stars — we hope the show is for you but it can’t be for you all the time.
Those most vocal in criticising tell me that what we do isn’t like the old days. The irony here is that towards the end of their time broadcasting, Channel 4 came under fire for focusing too much on betting. It’s now gone full circle and we are told we don’t do enough. ‘It’s nothing like it was with John McCririck!’ I am told — and that is right.
“Big Mac” and Tanya Stevenson were dynamite in the betting ring and had a way of making you feel like you were there, in the thick of it, as punters tried to snaffle fancy prices.
Producing a racing programme for TV in 2024 that caters to all audiences is no easy task
The Coral Gold Cup is one of the most highly-anticipated jump racing events of the winter season
The ring was crucial in determining what starting price (SP) a horse would return — that’s no longer the case.
It was brilliant, compelling viewing but the world has changed — and so has ‘the jungle’. What would Big Mac make of an increasingly cashless world? I’ve looked at bookmakers’ pitches on course this summer and the buzz isn’t there. It’s so easy now to bet on your phone.
At two recent big meetings, at Ascot and Cheltenham, our reporters were scheduled to do a report from the betting ring but struggled to find a bookmaker with a strong opinion for or against a horse that day, unlike the late Barry Dennis, who would tell you what favourite he was going to sink.
Make no mistake, the ring still comes alive at the big festivals and Brian Gleeson will be at the heart of it for us. Betting also remains at the centre of every show — as it should. We embrace it. After all, betting largely finances the sport and a huge proportion of our audience love a little dabble.
Punters currently seem under attack from so many sides, with those dreaded affordability checks, and get such short shrift from so many racing bodies yet it is them helping fund the sport. We never forget that and keep them in mind at all times.
Any race which appears on ITV produces a turnover uplift so we are already significantly boosting betting turnover.
Small fields remain my biggest bug bear — yes, it’s important to have variety, we’ll always look to show the best competitive races with the best prices.
Flexibility moving forward is important. It still baffles me that in 2024 in the biggest shop window of the lot at the Cheltenham Festival, the sport wasn’t fleet-footed enough to replace the cross-country race, which had been abandoned.
The sport and betting have changed since the late John McCririck’s days in ‘the jungle’
Horse racing and betting go hand in hand but the balance for a show on a terrestrial television channel must be kept.
Could we do two hours of prices and bets? Of course we could — my background was in the 1990s as an odds compiler at Ladbrokes.
But it wouldn’t work. I did a betting programme on Sky with the best presenter of the modern era, Jeff Stelling, called The Full SP. It didn’t last the season.
Punters will be looked after and we know what betting means. It will never stop us, though, pursuing the right balance.
