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The Front Runner

What's your most memorable racing commentary of 2023? Help me pick the best one

Auguste Rodin (second right) stays on best to land the Irish Champion Stakes
Auguste Rodin (second right): wins a thrilling Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown in SeptemberCredit: Patrick McCann

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For the Front Runner, Sunday's action at Fairyhouse was not just a chance to identify long-range prospects for Cheltenham. It was also a reminder of how you and I had a long chat at this time last year about commentators and what we want from them.

After you all voted on the subject, it was decided that Jerry Hannon's call of the Royal Bond was the best racing commentary of 2022. There's no question that Hannon caught the drama of that close finish as Marine Nationale collared Irish Point on the line.

It was a good year for commentaries that reflected the drama on the track. Our final vote also featured Richard Hoiles on Shishkin versus Energumene at Ascot, Mark Johnson on a three-way battle for the Eclipse and Mike Cattermole hailing the brilliance of Baaeed. There was also room on the shortlist for John "I'm off for a lie down" Blance coping deftly with the chaotic finish to a relatively low-profile handicap hurdle at Uttoxeter.

Now it's time to do it all again. We want to identify the best racing commentary of 2023 in Britain and Ireland and we need your nominations this week please. 

Email your thoughts to frontrunner@racingpost.com to say which commentaries you think deserve to be on this year's shortlist. Then we'll vote for a winner next week.

Bearing in mind the outcome of last year's vote, Hannon will surely be a strong contender again, not least for the Irish Champion Stakes. "Auguste Rodin is in champion spirit," he cried at the end of a race that was keenly anticipated and produced a hard-fought finish, two elements that give a commentator the chance to deliver magic. 

Auguste Rodin featured in so many of the year's best races, though not always prominently. There was also his Derby victory called by Simon Holt and Hoiles.

Holt probably has a better chance with Chaldean's Guineas, in which he spotted and neatly relayed all the emerging plotlines and implications in the closing stages. 

Jerry Hannon: provided a memorable commentary on Auguste Rodin's victory in the Irish Champion Stakes
Jerry Hannon: provided a memorable commentary on Auguste Rodin's victory in the Irish Champion StakesCredit: Patrick McCann

I liked Hoiles finding a half-second in his Gold Cup commentary to mention Galopin Des Champs unseating at the final fence a year ago, which he managed without derailing his train of thought. 

Arguably, it's harder to deliver a memorable call when everyone can see who's going to win. All the more reason to admire Stewart Machin for his description of Constitution Hill's Champion Hurdle, which found room for both drama and dignity. 

More recently, Ian Bartlett did a great job of Saturday's Coral Gold Cup – "Gavin Sheehan has passed every rival in this..." 

But these are just some thoughts of mine to get you started. Are any of these worthy to make the final cut? Only you will decide.

So please get in touch with your own suggestions, which can be from any race, from the most valuable to Wolverhampton on a Monday night. The skill is what we're after, whether it be a note-perfect rendering of a headline moment or a piece of wit that elevates and transcends a race that might otherwise have seemed humdrum. 

As Hoiles told us last December: "It's the memory that people like and you've had the privilege of providing the soundtrack. They don't think, straight after Shishkin and Energumene: 'What a great commentary!' They think: 'What a great race!' They watch it lots of times and if your commentary fits what they're seeing, then it becomes part of a well-loved soundtrack."

If you can think of an example this year of when that job was particularly well done, write and tell me.


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Chris CookRacing Writer of the Year

inThe Front Runner

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