On one of the threads regarding Tellytrack presenters, someone asked the question "What has happened to good old Jimmy?".
This prompts me to reveal just what has transpired since I mentioned that I had been given the boot as a TT presenter in about September of last year.
I was asked to come in to see Tellytrack's CEO, John Stuart, at that time, who advised me that "I had not emerged too well" in a survey undertaken by the channel and that the time had come to gracefully retire as a presenter, in return for which he would look at providing me with alternate sources of income.
The exact nature of the survey - who was surveyed and what the survey had sought to achieve - was not revealed, but, at 67, I thought my shelf life as a presenter was probably nearing an end and that I should focus on other avenues in my bid to earn a living. Mr Stuart's offer seemed appealing, as we discussed my resuming voiceover shifts on Racing International, my becoming a "monitor" of output from the Tellytrack studio, and my devising a training course and manual for new recruits as presenters. I was invited to put my thoughts down on paper, for consideration, which I duly did, within a day or two of the discussion, but "the rest is silence", to quote the closing line from Shakespeare's greatest play.
In the meantime, Lyall Cooper has been appointed as a presenter on RI, someone is apparently on the payroll as an external "monitor" of Tellytrack programme content and what goes out on the station (including what is said by presenters) and there appears to be no further effort being made to recruit and properly train new presenters, though I stand open to correction.
I have had no response to four follow-up E-mails and have failed in my numerous bids to reach Mr Stuart by phone.
After 33 years in the industry, not a chirp by way of any kind of a "thank you", which is not surprising, I suppose.
What riles me is the fact that after Rod McCurdy came up from Port Elizabeth I was never given another on-course presenting shift, despite the fact that I considered that to be my forte. Like Neil Pretorius, who went the same way, I think I have an eye for a horse, and can reliably report on what looks the part and what doesn't. Sadly, that doesn't seem to be the emphasis, which is rather to make form-based assessments from the Computaform (preferably) or whatever other form guides are out there, though the Sporting Post, which is the only one which offers a decent run-down on breeding and past performances of the dams of the runners is frowned upon.
Studio work, I have to say, didn't interest me as much, especially when one is required to bang out projected tote dividends, pools etc. as stridently as possible, to try to drum the punters into a frenzy. The fact that I am not a punter myself, undoubtedly counted against me in that environment, and for a long time I was used as the Monday man, the misconception being that I wasn't Saturday afternoon material, being unable to cajole viewers into parting with their hard earned shekels. When they did, on one occasion, use me on a Saturday afternoon, the pools were more than respectable, disproving such silly notions.
The fact is, I had a pretty good knowledge of international racing and I tried to bring odd snippets of breeding information into play, as much by way of educating viewers as by way of throwing some light on the likely outcome of races. Perhaps I irritated those who already had the benefit of the Internet to determine their bets, by reading out form comments, but I always tried to arrive at some sort of concensus of opinion amongst the leading UK tipsters, in particular.
The one thing I did pride myself on was in being able to properly pronounce the names of the horses, in most instances (French names are always a problem, if you don't speak the language) but that didn't seem to be important. In fact, the mangling of the English language seems to be almost a pre-requisite for presenters.
There were also, undoubtedly, those who hated my slightly plummy, BBC tones (you can't really help it if you grew up in Maritzburg and made a few bucks from acting out Shakespeare, on stage) and some Clanners claimed that I had a soporific effect on them. You try keeping things lively at 10 o'clock at night, with a diet of racing from an icy Wolverhampton or a muddy Parx, my absolute bete noir! Or try to get things off to a bright and breezy start with chariot racing from Launceston, for that matter.
It's been a boost for me, in my slightly disheartened state, to get some nice feedback from the "Stable Talk" series, and I'm hoping to do a new one, this year, possibly with a slightly different format, but the platform for exhibiting documentaries has shrunk in size, with the ditching of "Winner's Circle", and other Tellytrack programming.
So, as you can imagine, things are a bit frustrating for anyone working in the horse racing television environment, at the moment, and I'm certainly not alone in this predicament, with Andrew Bon having experienced the same treatment. But we live in hope that good work will attract a market or find a viewership, and that the opportunities to express oneself will still come one's way. One has got to accept that things have to change, that new blood must be introduced, but, for goodness' sake, train people well for the job at hand and use the experience and expertise of the older brigade to maintain and improve on standards.
Don't, as has happened, replace them with youngsters who don't know what a "draw" means (I kid you not!) or that a horse is "by" and not "out of" a particular stallion. Cronyism and nepotism are ugly words, but they've entered horse racing's vocabulary and they seem to be here to stay.
Topic Author
-D......there is much more to racing than punting though.... but only purists like yourself are able to comprehend......keep up the good work.....we are bound to run into one another again.....
