Seconds Out: Oli's latest monthly blog

Hi Racesharers!

Hope you all had a great Easter Weekend. Owners of La Pulga certainly did... that was a GREAT comeback run in the Queens Cup at Musselburgh. At the furlong pole, I thought he might even win it at huge odds but he faded slightly late on. Nevertheless, it was a terrific start to the season. As always, great to see a lot of you racing and Nick with his camera documenting it all for those that couldn’t make it.

It was a busy time on ITV with three days racing over Easter. Irish Grand National on Monday, obviously La Pulga running on ITV at Musselburgh on Easter Saturday and All-Weather Championships finals day that kicked it all off for us on Good Friday. That show in particular got a lot of people talking on social media after myself and the team debated the ride Oisin Murphy gave Old Harrovian, the 6/4 fav in the Easter Classic.

I am going to start this off by saying that the beauty of racing is that it is a game of opinions. What you see may be very different to what I see both pre and post race. That is why, as a puzzle it is fascinating and why trying to solve the puzzle is so enjoyable. It is why there are betting markets! Do I see something that is over the price I make a horse? Is something too short in my opinion? Was a horse given a bad ride or unlucky? My opinion on those questions might differ from yours or indeed the bookies. Therefore whatever other people thought of the Old Harrovian ride is inconsequential to my thoughts. In my view the horse was given too much to do and rather than being beaten a very short margin, should have won.

What happened after the debate we had on air should be applauded. Oisin Murphy posted a video of his explanation and thoughts on the ride. In it, he explained why the horse was held up, and the way the race unfolded from a pace point of view. He went into detail how having managed to settle the horse he didn’t want to ask for maximum effort instantly, rather wind the horse up into top gear gradually. Finally, he acknowledged that he should have, in hindsight, asked for full effort from his mount 5 or 6 strides sooner. Irrespective of your opinion of the ride, this was BRILLIANT engagement from the champion jockey and should be seen in a hugely positive light. It was a transparent explanation and apology for
what was an incredibly rare error of judgement from a superb rider. A rider whose mistakes you can count on one hand.

Oisin is in the fortunate position of not having to worry about losing rides and knows that he will be riding, injury permitting, between 100-200 winners this year. It affords him the luxury of being able to communicate openly and freely with his followers on social media safe in the knowledge that it is highly unlikely he wont be getting jocked off and will be able to right any wrongs next time out. Not every jockey has that safety net. However, it really would go a long way to appeasing punters’ frustrations if this openness happened more often. Oisin mentioned things about the ride that made perfect sense, and had he not vocalised it in his video message on X, I and a lot of other racing fans, wouldn’t have factored in. Whilst there were a number of discerning voices on social media about the ride, the fact that he put his hands up and apologised diffused a lot of the noise because frankly, what else can you do? He talked through the ride, admitted an error and apologised. Well done for fronting up…move on.

I worked for three years covering racing in Australia in my early 20’s (feels like a lifetime ago now!) and Down Under the level of criticism jockeys get compared to here is chalk and cheese. On an almost daily basis, racing pundits and presenters would criticise jockeys, and in turn jockeys would say if they gave one a shocker. Weirdly, because of that openness there was, I felt, a more forgiving attitude towards it. This is over a decade ago mind you so maybe times have changed in Australia but certainly that was my experience of my time in the racing game there.

Culturally I think we criticise jockeys less in the UK and I am not championing criticising every jockey, on every ride, but I think what the conversation on Friday and subsequent correspondence from Oisin demonstrated was that it is OK to question a ride, to engage in a healthy and fair debate with pundits on the matter and then for a jockey to present his or her side of the argument or indeed offer an explanation. This was a really healthy eco system of analysis that got a lot of people talking and a lot of different views shared. I hope Oisin’s video will encourage other jockeys to do the same in the future.

Regarding my role, I have watched a lot of races and seen a lot of rides, if I see one that merits further analysis I wont be afraid to delve into it deeper. I have done that twice recently, the first was Ahoy Senor at the back end of last year which ended up with myself and Tom Scudamore having a brilliant conversation about it. Then more recently Friday’s analysis alongside Megan and Adele. Not everyone will agree, and there will be different opinions flying around but it was a healthy conversation that made for interesting television. That is what the sport benefits from and I believe everyone was better off for having the conversation rather than not.