Henry Blofeld commentates on the 2010 Grand National: ‘This is exciting!’

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/mar/31/henry-blofeld-grand-national-commentary

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Every little boy or girl who ever developed a taste for horse racing has, at some stage, commentated on the Grand National, even if it was only in the privacy of their own interior monologue. And yet, in the race’s 170-odd years, there has probably only been one person who felt it appropriate, as the leaders rounded the elbow, to describe the action with the words: “My goodness me, this is exciting!”

As cricket fans may already suspect, the speaker is Henry Blofeld, who has a cherished place in that sport’s lore, having been a regular on Test Match Special since 1972. And now, at the age of 75, he faces one of the more challenging assignments of his career, having been asked to set aside all thought of bouncers and googlies and silly mid-off in favour of Becher’s and geldings and stewards’ inquiries; in short, to provide a commentary for the Grand National.

Blofeld will not, alas, be tasked with covering the real thing live on 11 April. Even for an admired and seasoned pro, identifying 40 horses haring pell-mell away from the grandstand would, after decades of describing cricket’s relative languor, be the assignment it is rash to accept. But he has agreed, in a spirit of experiment, to try talking over footage of the 2010 National, famously won by Tony McCoy on Don’t Push It, and to be filmed doing so.

“Peter O’Sullevan was a friend of mine,” Blofeld says in a break between takes at Lingfield Park, “and I’ve always been amazed at the way people like him call races. How they can work out where all the colours are … I find it hard enough to tell 11 cricketers apart and they’re going in slow motion, compared to the horses.

“Today has been a great experience for me, coming here and having an absolute wizard like Simon [Holt, of Channel 4] teach me everything and talk to me about it is fascinating. It’s a completely new angle on everything. I’ve loved it.”

Had PG Wodehouse written a commentator into one of his books, he might have been a lot like Blofeld, so extremely well spoken and yet joyfully unrestrained. In his natural habitat, he is famed for taking time to discuss whatever seemingly irrelevant detail might have caught his eye, like a bus, a pigeon or the press-room cake, but surely there can be no time for such fripperies during an event as hectic as the National?

“Well, if you were listening to my commentary this morning, you would have found there was a little bit of room for it. But only very little.”

And so it proves, when the earlier takes are played back. The race itself holds Blofeld’s attention only as far as the first fence, where he says: “And there you can see the car that’s keeping the camera on them, making sure of fair play.” Moments later: “They’re going up now, getting towards Becher’s with these rather grim, stern-looking houses in the background …”

Oh dear. It is not really done, during the biggest party of Liverpool’s year, to be so scathing of the local architecture, even if one’s comments are directed at a very specific street.

At other points, cricket’s man really seems like a loss to horse racing. “I can see AP McCoy’s white cap bouncing up and down like an animated mushroom. He’s in the thick of it, that’s good news,” Blofeld reports at an early stage. Later, having a second go at the climax, he comes up with: “Is this going to be the first ever National win for the greatest jump jockey of all time? Yes, the horse looks calm, Tony McCoy looks calm, he’s lengthening his stride …”

The language used is sometimes unconventional but that would also be true to some extent when Blofeld attends to his day job. In other respects, he is quite convincing as a race caller, conveying real urgency and making a fair fist of identifying runners both high-profile and obscure.

He certainly did enough to impress Holt, who attends as adviser and critic. “When McCoy was getting congratulated by the other jockeys, that’s where his experience as a broadcaster really showed because he described that extremely well,” says the man who will have to describe the finish of the real thing a week on Saturday. “Asking someone to call a Grand National when they’ve never commentated on a horse race before is ridiculous, so it was a really tough ask.”

Holt feels that, at least in the initial takes, Blofeld conveyed rather too much urgency. “When he did the first bit from the start down to Becher’s first time, he went off at a million miles an hour.” Blofeld cheerily concedes it is a mistake he has often had to warn young cricket callers against. “I wouldn’t have started off on the first morning of a Test match at Lords at that rate. It was only because I’m very much a new boy.”

Holt recalls making the same error when covering the Welsh Grand National back in 1989. “Through my inexperience, at the end of the first circuit, I was too high and by the time they went round again, I was literally squeaking at the finish. That taught me a lot about trying to just rein back a little. But I’ve failed occasionally since. There’s been one or two big races where I’ve got too excited.”

The two are trading war stories now and become especially animated on the subject of pre-match nerves. “I definitely suffer from stress in this job,” Holt says. “I don’t think I show it much and I try and convey this laid-back, you know, but I had a couple of terrible nights’ sleep during Cheltenham, indigestion and whatever, and it had to be stress. It had to be.

“It’s the waiting. I turn up at the races and of course we have production meetings, so I’m there on the course at 9.30am, 10am, and invariably I think: ‘I just wish I could do it now.’ And having to wait four hours before this moment …”

Blofeld, who does not strike one as a great worrier, nevertheless claims to have had jitters himself. “I always feel, when I go back to the box after a gap: ‘God, I wonder if I can do it again?’ And I get rather nervous. And I sit down and, after two balls, it’s just as though you’ve never been away. And I enjoy it as much as ever but I do certainly, in the 10 days or so before the first Test match, I wake up at night and slightly think to myself: ‘God, I wonder if I can do this? Am I going to make the most frightful balls of it?’”

He listens as Holt runs through the advice he would give to a Grand National newbie, having been covering the race himself for the past quarter-century. “First of all, there’s the homework aspect of it because there are 40 horses.

“I think also, although it’s a very febrile atmosphere, you’ve got to stay as calm as possible because when they run down to the first fence, you literally can’t see the wood for the trees, there’s so many of them, it’s actually quite difficult to pick out just one or two. So keeping a calm, cool head is important.

“As you get more excited, the diction has got to remain good. After you’ve got the accuracy sorted and identified the horses, then maybe an element of performance in relaying how exciting it all is.”

It is the bit about homework that sticks with Blofeld and may actually prompt him to slightly alter his preparation or lack thereof. “He’s made me slightly embarrassed in one way because I, of all the commentators, probably do less homework than anyone.”

He explains that is at least partly because he so specialises in relaying the atmosphere of the moment. “But in racing, of course, homework is absolutely crucial and he’s made me feel rather guilty. On 21 May, I go to the Lord’s commentary box for the first Test against New Zealand. I think on the 18th, 19th and 20th, I shall probably be doing a little bit of homework. Not quite for the first time ever …”

To watch Tony McCoy’s final ride in the Crabbie’s Grand National, tune into Channel 4 on Saturday 11 April from 1.30pm