Walsh has more to offer than falling foul of wind-ups
Can Ruby and AP become racing’s version of the Neville and Carragher show? asks Alan Tyers
Atelevision debut this weekend for one of the greatest living sportspeople, as legendary jockey Ruby Walsh took up a new role as a pundit on ITV Racing.
He was certainly on familiar terrain, starting out at Cheltenham, the course that he made his own over a career that brought 59 Festival wins.
A deluge ruled out Friday’s racing, though, meaning that Saturday was his maiden event. ITV, hoping perhaps to start some Carragherneville action going, paired him with Sir Anthony Mccoy for the afternoon coverage, but before that stellar duo were put in harness together, Walsh braved The Opening Show, presented by Oli Bell.
Also featured on the ITV4 dawn patrol tips-and-chat format was Matt Chapman, the presenter who has inherited the John Mccririck role as racing television’s betting ring Marmite personality and resident agent provocateur. Chapman has previously fallen foul of Sir Anthony on air with ITV; the former jockey having dismissed him as “a clown” on more than one occasion.
Chapman is clearly not the sensitive type, though, and was more than ready to try his luck with Walsh on Saturday.
Walsh had barely finished his hellos before Chapman was at him with jibes about falling on Annie Power at the last in 2015 and cracks like “there is a reason people retire: it is because they are over the hill”. Where Mccoy’s response to Chapman has been withering looks and crisp put-downs, Walsh by contrast was drawn into some icy, peevish banter that reached its nadir when he rounded on Chapman for interrupting him and then, incorrectly as it happened, upbraided him for having said that
Vieux Lion Rouge had won a Grand National when Chapman, to give him his due, had in fact said that the horse had
run in it. Chapman is a difficult ingredient to pair, like smoked fish, or anthrax, and was noticeably kept away from Walsh by Sunday’s programming.
The rest of Saturday saw Walsh and Sir Anthony together doing a decent job at illuminating viewers as to the jockey’s art. Walsh was very good on the tactics of riding at Cheltenham in heavy going, and how he would change his approach because there was an unusually long gap before a late fence due to a moved obstacle this weekend.
Surely, this peekbehind-the-curtain material is the more natural usage for a freshly retired sporting great than attempting the tricky business of unscripted knockabout?
In my view, the double-edged sword with the ex-pro pundit in all sports is this: as the months go by since retirement, they get more polished and confident in front of the camera, but that also makes them less likely to say something unguarded, i.e. something revealing and entertaining. Better to get them talking about what it actually feels like to chase and win the glory before they ease into the media life, bottom soon too comfy on those sofas.
The longevity of the jump jockey, their sense of perspective about the twin impostors, and the fact that horse racing is not just a sport that people do but a way of life that people are, means that any given Saturday can give them all manner of stories and, when allowed to just talk, Walsh and Mccoy had lots of interesting things to say about their erstwhile weighing-room colleagues, their ailing friend Pat Smullen, and their singular profession.
What ITV would love, I am quite sure, is for the two of them to start having some arguments, although whether either of them has the showman streak of a Gary Neville or a Jamie Carragher is as yet unproven.
Walsh is a clever man who is not afraid to upset – he spoke very well about horse fatalities at Cheltenham in 2014 when he said “it’s sad, but horses are animals, outside your back door. You can replace a horse but you can’t replace a human being”.
Whether he has the appetite for a bit of drama remains to be seen, but if it comes, it will surely emerge from the sport and the human life around it, not from confected wind-ups.
As the ex-pro gets more polished, they become more guarded