THE rain fell heavily on the Ascot heath to dampen proceedings. On Tuesday on ITV Racing Jason Weaver had informed viewers that there is nothing as miserable as Frankie Dettori in the rain. Maybe when he’s on no-hopers and getting done in tight photo-finishes; that probably had little to do with the weather.

Frankie was the man on day two of the Royal Meeting and when he is dominating, everything, even the weather takes a back seat. At 48 years of age, the Italian won’t be around forever, but every media outlets long for Frankie’s eternal youth. Two winners, two flying dismounts, the wet crowd were happy.

Dettori is manna from heaven for a TV producer, he’ll give ebullient post-race interviews, play up to the crowd, provide guaranteed box-office moments after the race.

It doesn’t even matter what he says, to paraphrase Frank Carson (ask your granddad, kids), ‘it’s the way he tells ‘em’. There is nobody like him. His crossover familiarity with non-racing folk is also an essential asset to both him and the coverage.

ITV Racing/Virgin Media coverage is all about the crossover. ‘Slashies’ is the term apparently. Like model ‘slash’ actor or like Lucie ‘the surfer’ in Love Island who upon minor interrogation downgraded herself to surfer slash model. Anyway ITV love slashies.

In fairness, if any industry is okay with multiple roles it’s probably horse racing. Given there’s really televised racing just a day a week, being a slashie is professionally essential.

Unflappable

Frontman Ed Chamberlin is a bit of a crossover star having come from Sky Sports Football coverage, his Sky training makes him positively unflappable. The rain affected many attendees on Wednesday, but not Chamberlin.

He did note the weather enforced movement of the team through the day in what is probably as close to annoyed as the genial host gets.

The man is such a professional; one wonders what it would actually take to unsettle the former Sky Sports man.

As a towering inferno rages in the grandstand Chamberlain would still be there, genially linking pieces about fashion “ I bet you’re warm now Charlotte and Jason”, betting “It’s odds to heat up in the ring there, Brian”, and bringing in the social stable “what are the Twitter HOT takes like, Matt?” He is unflappable.

The calm and unflappable nature of Chamberlin is in stark contrast to the mania of Matt Chapman. That Matt was already more than halfway to losing his voice by the Prince of Wales’s Stakes will cast major doubt about him seeing out the trip this week.

The Sky Sports racing man was alongside former Love Islander and certified racing fan Chris Hughes in the Social Stable.

Problem child

Ah, the Social Stable, the problem child of the ITV Racing family. Is it banter, is it insight, is it just a way of getting Instagram kids to tune in?

Weirdly, the Social Stable kind-of works as a segment, despite itself. Chris inevitably takes himself a little too seriously while Matt is a little too hyperactive.

But, but , but... but, it feels necessary, and relevant, and does provide some *buzzword alert* engagement. A quick dive into the social stable hashtag, the method by which the show attempts to interact with the audience, reveals a contrasting story to the moaners and begrudgers, as Enda Kenny would call them, on my timeline.

Yes, they cherry-picked plenty of low hanging fruit, and Chapman was a little quick to dismiss some ideas or suggestions. Much of the content is harmless fun, with people genuinely answering the questions posed by the on-screen pair.

The lack of interaction by either of the presenters or the official ITV Racing Twitter account seems a misstep if there is an appetite to grow the segment beyond a two-minute hourly snippet.

The Social Stable has many vocal detractors among horse racing Twitter and ‘established traditional’ talking heads from the horse racing community. i.e. the same people who complain about the fashion content. In other words, not members of the intended Social Stable audience. The Cieron Fallon bit was good, but maybe it would have been better with Hughes rather than Chapman shouting in a young man’s face.

Chris Hughes is a big name in a world many readers of this paper may be unfamiliar with. On social media, he is a behemoth. He has two million followers on Instagram, and over 485,000 followers on Twitter, for comparison Ed Chamberlin has just over 210,000 on Twitter.

Chris Hughes is not the future for racing coverage but given his audience reach, he has to be part of the conversation about getting the next generation involved.