Cheltenham Festival: Top commentator Richard Hoiles reveals what it's like to call home a Cheltenham Festival winner

Imagine if you had to identify every single horse when hundreds of thousands of armchair punters are hanging on your words – and ready to ball you out if you slip up.

That’s the job ITV commentator Richard Hoiles has this week.

As the channel’s race caller he will describe every inch of the action in the first five races on each of the four days of the Festival with some of the trickiest contests thrown in.

The Coral Cup, Pertemps Final and County Hurdle are always packed with runners. Multiple entries from powerful owners like JP McManus and Gigginstown Stud does little to ease the confusion.

But perhaps the prickliest of puzzles for any commentator lies in the middle of the main course.

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Hoiles, 53, said: “I’m  comfortable with the cross-country race these days but I wasn’t early on.

“Looking at it from afar it’s like your kids’ Scalextric track. You need to walk the course a few times, then it does make sense.

“When JP McManus or Gigginstown have four or five runners you need to keep an eye on all the caps. The Irish commentators must have this regularly.

“On the normal racecourse you can pick them up more easily.


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“In big-field hurdle races it’s the line of sight that’s the problem. Certain horses will always be hidden and they can lose riders without you getting a decent sight.

“There’s nothing worse than knowing you’ve missed something.”

Most punters might expect Hoiles to pack a good drop of midnight oil in his Cheltenham suitcase with so many different sets of colours to match to horses.

None of it. His prep work to winkle out the facts, figures and possible stories likely to come in handy during the following day’s races is done in the evening but the memorising of the jockey’s silks takes place much later.

Hoiles explained: “I learn the colours as they’re on the way to post – never any earlier than that. With say JP McManus’ colours there are so many horses associated with those colours at Cheltenham you would just complicate it.

“It’s like putting a groove into the record — you just mutter them to yourself as they go past you.

“Some are a lot easier than others. The championship races tend to be the easy ones in terms of knowing what they are.

“At Cheltenham the horses are pretty well known anyway. Everyone could have a pretty good go at learning the colours in the Queen Mother Champion Chase or Gold Cup – it’s the Coral Cup or Pertemps Final that’s the hard ones.

“There will be things you don’t know, you’ve just got to accept that as far out as possible and work on sorting it out. If you think you know everything it will put you off.

“You’ve just got to trust yourself. It’s learn and forget, people find that quite odd.

“The idea is to be about as chilled out as you can be. You do get on edge, a bit nervous – but once the race is underway it’s a bit easier.

“I do enjoy it. I think so, anyway.”

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