THE familiar RTE crew were reunited for the Dublin Racing Festival with Robert Hall back to pose the questions alongside Ted Walsh. Danny Mullins, sidelined with a wrist injury, made a very good addition to the RTE team for Saturday.

Brian Gleeson was bubbling over in the betting ring, the excitement “like children going to a sweet shop,” as a tip-top card got underway.

Andy Mc got off to a slow start, his microphone breaking up and giving some sound feedback.

“Andy’s got gremlins in him or something, he’s driving our sounds mad,” Ted complained.

Andy later got more feedback, this time on the news of the switch of Irish racing from ATR to Racing UK. “There’s a lot of anger, it’s a step backwards,” he reported.

Robert, Ted and Danny had a debate over which colour – white or orange – on the take-off boards will make a horse jump better.

Danny thought shadows are worse than colours and a light on the take-off side to take away the shadows on an obstacle would help. An interesting prospect.

TIMING

The practice of getting a word with the beaten jockeys was a good insert, even if Ruby was unsure about it. “Bad timing makes for a bad interview. People have to be professional but they’re not getting paid for it,” he noted. Though surely our former jockeys, if doing the interviewing, will have more tack than Thommo.

The jockeys seem to make nothing of it, even a disappointed David Mullins said of Melon, “I don’t know what to make of it.” Paul Townend looked more disappointed with Faugheen. So was Ted.

“He looked like a slow horse, he never changed a gear.”

Ted hails Rachael Blackmore - “A top-class young woman with a great racing brain.”

On Sunday Ruby joined the team, always a welcome addition. He first found fault with Samcro though, “I’d like to have seen him go further than he did to pull up in Navan,” but Ted focussed on his walk.

“As good a walker as I’ve ever seen,” and Samcro lived up to the hype.

There were nice inserts over the two days with Ruby reunited with a retired Hurricane Fly and Tracy happy with her main man Our Duke.

Edwulf provided a feel-good story and more praise on Sunday, by contrast Robbie Power is very happy with Our Duke in the after race interviews.