Cheltenham’s champ I’d rather be Saucy Minx than #Mum
Festival has been part of ITV presenter’s life and being board member is the ‘ultimate privilege’
Alice Plunkett is the only woman to have completed the double of riding competitively at both Badminton and in the Grand National meeting at Aintree. But never mind the panic-inducing scale of the vertiginous obstacles she faced there, surely the most daunting thing she has done in her life must have been what happened after she retired from competition: for more than 10 years, as part of the Channel Four racing team, she was an on-screen colleague of John Mccririck.
“Oh no, I loved working with John,” she says of the self-styled unreconstructed sexist. “The great thing about him was he knew exactly what he was doing. He’d be so rude to me on telly, then so kind off camera. He’d always say to me, be as rude as you like to me, that’s what the public want. He was a brilliant PR man.”
But surely being the butt of his gibes must have become more than a little wearying? “I don’t know. What did he call me? Saucy Minx?” she smiles, as she busies herself in the kitchen of the family home in Dorset, making lunch for her three-year-old daughter, the youngest of her four children. “I’m not sure I wouldn’t rather be known as Saucy Minx than what I’m invariably called by colleagues these days – Hashtagmum.”
Mccririck may have long since departed our screens, he was let go by Channel Four in 2012, but Plunkett will be there at next week’s Cheltenham Festival as part of the broadcasting team from ITV. Though she admits she was a little surprised still to be involved.
“After Channel Four lost the contract, I thought that was it for me. I went into the interview at ITV and said, ‘I’d better warn you, I’m a 45-year-old mother-of-four’, thinking well, that means I’ve got absolutely no chance. But they gave me the job. It sounds naff, but it was incredibly empowering.”
And it is not just ITV that is tapping into her significant racing experience. At Cheltenham, she will have a dual role. As well as running alongside the horses as they complete the course, thrusting her microphone upwards in order to secure the first interview with the jockeys who have just won the Gold Cup and the Champion Hurdle, she is also a member of the Festival’s advisory board.
“Cheltenham has been part of my life always. I remember watching my parents going off there when we were too young to go, being desperate to grow up and be old enough. When I finally got there, I was blown away by how wonderful it was. Now I’m on the board, I honestly can’t believe it. It is the ultimate privilege.”
Her role, she says, is to add a different perspective, to ensure that a historically underrepresented racing constituency is given a proper voice. “There’s eight of us on the board and we all bring something different, from expertise in corporate governance to event-management skills. I probably bring a softer female angle.”
She was made aware of how under-represented the female perspective is in sport when she attended the recent Sports Journalism Awards in London, dispirited to discover only 10 per cent of the nominees were female and only one woman received an award. “I’m not a
bra-burner,” she says. “But I was taken aback by how overwhelmingly male an environment that was. That’s why I’m so pleased to be offered this position. It points out that we have something to contribute.”
Though she adds: “I’m not suggesting for a moment I have been prevented going places [in racing] because I’m a woman. That said, when I joined the Cheltenham board two years ago, I was the only woman. It could be argued maybe they should have consciously made an effort to bring more women on board. Anyhow, it’s a perennial conversation.”
But now she has been put in an elevated position, she acknowledges, it is one that does not come without challenge. Not least is the possibility of a conflict of interest: what happens if, as ITV’S fearless reporter, she is obliged to focus on something that might show the Festival in a negative light? What happens when the almost inevitable question about welfare and safety crops up the moment the green screens are erected on the course?
“It is something I have thought of,” she admits. “But if something came up, like if a horse was hurt, I think the board would be happy for me to ask the right questions.”
And Plunkett certainly knows the right questions to ask about safety. After all, she has first-hand experience of the danger in equestrian sport. In October 2015, her husband, the champion eventer William Fox-pitt, was badly injured after a fall during a competition.
“It was your worst nightmare,” she says of his accident. “I was by his bedside for about eight days with him in a coma. When he came round, he was suffering from major post-traumatic amnesia and had bad double vision.
“The thing is, he is the most meticulous rider, always ensures everything is in place. I think that’s why it caused such a shock in the sport – if it could happen to him, it could happen to anybody.”
During his rehabilitation, she was faced with a peculiar dilemma. She realised that the best route for him to recover his mental capacity was to do the very thing that had put him in danger in the first place: get back in the saddle. And he had a particular goal in mind: to take part in the Rio Olympics just 10 months after his catastrophic fall.
“William was always going to go to the Games, who was I to say no? I’m not his nanny. And it gave him a path which supported his recovery. Horses helped him hugely. I admit I was more nervous watching him. But I was so proud, he was so brave. He’s really well now. Who’s to say no to Tokyo?”
Her husband will be at Cheltenham for a couple of days, taking time out from his competitive schedule to join the tens of thousands of other racegoers relishing the unique sights, sounds and smells. It is maintaining that character of the occasion, Plunkett says, that should be the focus of her role.
“You have to keep reminding yourself it isn’t all about making short-term profits. We’re passionate about protecting it as a fantastic event that stays true to its roots, aspirational but accessible, but at its heart about the horse and the sport. Cheltenham is much bigger than any of us. We’re its guardians for the next generation.”
The next generation of men and women.
‘We’re passionate about protecting it as event that stays true to its roots’