With the death of TVN earlier this month, there was a hole in the market for a thoroughbred-specific channel.
Sky’s new channel, Thoroughbred Central, said it would take broadcasting thoroughbreds to “new heights”, and for most of the broadcast it was great.
It’s obvious that some thought has gone into this channel in a short space of time, however there were some kinks and a few things need to be ironed out.
The boutique angles from the inside during the running need to be given the boot. While it looks great, it is hard to gauge on how the race is shaping up. In a big field it was especially hard to see any moves happening.
Sky should just use traditional vision. I can understand the want to be different, but it’s not going to work, and is frustrating for the seasoned racing fan.
I was happy with the vision in the straight, however I’ve heard some of the raw footage was used for Channel Seven on free-to-air and many were tricked into thinking horses were going for broke 700 metres from home.
If you were also hoping for footage of horses in the yard for races outside of Sydney you would have been disappointed. Particularly for those interested in Bendigo’s stand alone meeting in Victoria, where it was usually vision of the runners just behind the barrier prior to racing.
There was a lot of good in the coverage and Sky looks to have established a really good team with a lot of expertise. I’m a big fan of picking horses in the yard and getting some good comments from Ron Dufficy and Caroline Searcy swayed some of my decisions on the day. For example I wasn’t all that big on Criterion prior to the George Ryder, but he was glowing and was Searcey’s pick of the yard. After that I decided to throw him in my exotics and he ran second behind Real Impact.
Bernadotte Cooper played a great role in pre and post-race interviews. It was comforting to hear from some of the jockeys prior to their races, and it gave some great insights.
Before Craig Williams’ ride on Volkstok’n’barrell Cooper asked how he could turn the table on Mongolian Khan, who had bested his runner in the previous two races they had contested. Williams said his runner had a better turn of foot and he would trust his runner to out-sprint his rivals in the straight. That’s exactly what happened, as Volkstok’n’barrell was able to hold of Preferment to win the race.
Sky also captured the emotion really well in their post-race interviews, and you could really feel the excitement of both Tommy Berry and James McDonald when they rode their winners.
The Golden Slipper footage in particular was a truly magical moment and will be right up there in racing folklore. It was hard to hold back the tears listening to Berry talk about how much the race meant to him. It was such great composure under pressure for a young man to overcome the obstacles placed in front of him to win.
I’m giving Sky’s Thoroughbred Central a eight out of, ten which isn’t bad considering it was their first day of broadcasting on the new channel. As I said earlier, their problems are only minor and can certainly be fixed over the coming weeks. I thoroughly enjoyed the coverage and believe the channel is a worthy replacement following the end of TVN.
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