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DAVID CARR |
Weblog: What do you mean the Wi-Fi doesn't work? The life of a Racing Post reporter
The Beeb come to sunny Sedgefield
Big news can mean big changes. Unveiling the new whip rules led to a bizarre form of 'cultural exchange scheme' today.
My capable Racing Post colleague Lee Mottershead swapped the press room for the TV studio as he was summoned to discuss the issue on the BBC Breakfast Time sofa - and was apparently very good.
(I missed it as I was on the school run but Iam sure he will have been excellent - and any time that the mainstream media turns for comment to a fresh face rather than just hitting the redial for John McCririck has to be good for racing).
But seemingly to balance out the universe - to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction - a BBC TV reporter was dispatched to the Sedgefield press room.
Andy Swiss - you'd recognise him from the news - was here along with a cameraman and a producer, filminga story on the whip rules.
Like most 'names' in his profession that I have come across, he may be on our screens every night but he had not a trace of arrogance.
Humility comes with a job in which no matter how good you are things can always go wrong. As this afternoon, when he finally persuaded Tony McCoy out of the weighing-room for an interview - only to find his cameraman had disappeared to get a new battery.
It only took a few minutes for him to return but you could see from the look on his face - and hear in the plaintiveness of his frequent apologies - that they were a long few minutes for Mr Swiss.
He gets sent to many exotic locations - he is off to Montenegro for the England match next week - and I am not sure what he made of Sedgefield.
Hope he doesn't think the balmy September sunshine is typical - try coming in an Arctic January.
He'll have been intriguedby the music blaring out on the public address on his arrival. It started with a large chunk of the 'New World Symphony' but then went through various muzak standards and ended with 'In The Bleak Midwinter' - a bizarre Christmassy accompaniment to the current Indian summer.
Not sure what he'll have thought about the MC, racing's Mr Marmite, who excelled himself when collecting losing betting tickets for his trademark draw.
He asked one woman if she had backed a loser and on getting the answer 'yes' told her 'you should have rung the Thommo hotline'.
Crowing later to Mick FitzGerald - on mic - about his 100 per cent strike-rate (one win from one ride) for Nicky Henderson, he got the perfectriposte from the trainer's former stable jockey who said: "That's because he didn't want you to ride for him again."
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