Simon Holt: Big Mac was often outrageous but brilliant to work with

Weekender columnist Simon Holt worked with John McCririck on Channel 4 Racing and paid tribute to his long-time colleague, who died last week at the age of 79

Readers of the many tributes to John McCririck, who died last week at the age of 79, will have learned that racing’s biggest personality was a man of contradictions.

In my experience working with him for more than 20 years, he could change from being stimulating, funny and even inspiring one day to argumentative, grumpy and even a little sulky the next, especially if there was no fresh cream for his coffee.

Sometimes, there would be a complete sense of humour failure. “Don’t be so stupid,” he would shout amid surrounding laughter.

While probably true that Channel 4 Racing viewers either loved him or loathed him, and few felt indifferent, he was impossible to ignore with his manufactured, larger-than-life on-screen persona, forthright views, sometimes outrageous behaviour and mastery of his subject.

While a stranger to computers, nobody prepared more thoroughly for a programme than Big Mac. He would make unreadable notes in several racecards and carried endless statistics on scraps of paper which were falling apart like ancient parchments. He worked hard.

He was very much a team player, developing nicknames and terms of endearment for other presenters – the Greatest Jockey, Fat Al, the Pouting Heiress, the Fe-mail, etc – and seemed to relish being part of a collaborative effort.

An agent provocateur, Mac loved an argument and there were regular on-screen bust-ups, in particular with a red-faced and exasperated Jim McGrath, which made for good television.

On The Morning Line, he brought the programme alive with his provocative weekly newspaper review, while in the afternoon he was the undisputed king of the ‘betting jungle’, attacking bookmakers if he felt punters were being fleeced.

John McCririck in the betting ring at Doncaster in 2002Credit: Edward Whitaker

When that fiefdom was threatened, perhaps by racegoers playing the fool behind him or waving to the camera, he would round on them viciously and tell them “to grow up” and “behave yourselves” in a manner which would have alarmed some viewers and entertained others.

While all this was going on, and he performed his trademark ‘tic-tac’ and reported the odds in rhyming slang, his regular sound man Rod was always on hand to hold the giant cigar.

One day he turned on a large group of young male racegoers at Haydock and told them they were “a disgrace to the north-west”. Such incidents often threatened to turn nasty and, at the bigger meetings, he needed security.

John McCririck (right) with the Channel 4 Morning Line team in 2011Credit: Edward Whitaker

But Mac was seldom fearful and, unlike the “supine hacks” (his reference to racing journalists), he didn’t mind upsetting people if he had a point to make. And, beyond all the bluster, he was often right.

What his critics didn’t seem to understand was that the outspoken, eccentrically clothed and grotesquely blinged on-screen image was a carefully crafted performance. In the words of his devoted wife Jenny, “he was a pantomime act”.

Viewers were fascinated by what made him tick and the most common question I have been asked at the races is: “What is McCririck really like?” To which I usually answered: “He’s probably a lot nicer than you think and brilliant to work with.”

A self-publicist who lined his pocket as a media whore, Mac was the best champion punters have ever had and could be generous both with money and with his time. He was a kind, caring man, soft-hearted with animals, and hated the whip.

On the other hand, politically to the right, he deplored bleeding hearts and a population who, as he called it, had become “hooked on subsidy”.

Such views earned him a somewhat shrill appearance on the BBC’s Question Time and, capitalising on his growing mainstream profile, he willingly accepted invitations to appear on reality television programmes.

John McCririck: on Celebrity Wife SwapCredit: Channel 4

Dressed only in baggy white underpants, he was silent for three days on Celebrity Big Brother because of the unavailability of Diet Coke, while in an amusing mismatch on Celebrity Wife Swap he admonished Edwina Currie for failing to provide toast at breakfast.

He knew how to create a stir and how to play the game. Before his appearance on Celebrity Big Brother, he told me his intention was to behave as badly as possible, get voted out early and take the money
(a six-figure sum). And that’s what happened.

But being a ‘celebrity’ and instantly recognisable had its drawbacks. Mac could often be seen wearing a black-and-white scarf as he was a Newcastle United fan and there was a nasty moment after the show at Newcastle races one day as we waited for our train back to London.

At nearby St James’ Park, “howay the lads” had been playing Arsenal and it was our hope to get away ahead of the fans who would also be travelling south.

But our train was running late, we could hear the approaching thunder of football supporters and Mac began pacing up and down the platform muttering: “I’m dead, I’m dead!”

In the nick of time, just as the chants grew louder in the acoustic, high-roofed station, the train arrived, we got away and champagne was ordered to celebrate the great escape.

Back in London on Saturday nights, he would invariably dine at The Ivy with Jenny, whom he always referred to as ‘The Booby’, named apparently after a bird and not a prize.

Jenny drove John everywhere in the Volvo, usually with several gorgeous dogs in the back, and her devotion to duty even stretched to venturing out to King’s Cross station late on Friday evenings to buy the newspapers for the following morning’s review.

Their relationship could easily be mistaken as one of master and servant, but the truth was they were a great couple. He couldn’t have operated without her and sexist comments directed at Jenny and women in general were intended to be amusing.

John and Jenny McCririck at Royal Ascot in 2014Credit: Edward Whitaker

I don’t think he had a problem with women at all, though he wasn’t so keen on his mother-in-law, “The Reptile”.

Many female racegoers loved to have their picture taken with him (because, he always said, of his overwhelming sex appeal), but others were less impressed and, over time, some of his comments were taken more seriously.

For someone who had been such a massive personality and driven much interest in the sport, it was saddening to see the work, which he lived for, dry up in recent years and Channel 4 dealt him the lowest of blows when declining to renew his contract in 2012.

Afterwards he was a popular contributor on At The Races, but at last year’s Derby I found him sitting alone and under-weight outside the media marquee. While never one for self-pity, he looked diminished and said he didn’t feel like eating.

At production meetings, Mac was amused by the trite idea he would end up one day in that “great, big betting ring in the sky”.

Perhaps he’s up there now, smoking that long, messy cigar, sipping at a glass of Dom Perignon, giving it a bit of ‘Burlington Bertie, 100-30’ and telling us all to grow up, behave ourselves and not be so stupid.

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