The big excitement this month is the launch of a brand new web-mag called Eclipse. It’s aimed at people who go racing once or twice a year, love the day out but don’t really understand much about what’s going on. If you visit the website, you will find out more: www.eclipsemagazine.co.uk
I will be writing regular columns for the magazine, plus telling them what I tell you about where I’m going to be for the month ahead.
From May 1st-4th I will be at Badminton for the BBC. It’s the first event I ever presented live and I’ve been doing it for over 10 years now. I love it. When I was little, all I wanted to be was a 3-day-eventer so now I look at Pippa Funnell, William Fox-Pitt and Mary King and think, “wow, I would never have been good enough!”
Zara Phillips is due to ride and hopefully this year will get her first taste of a Badminton Cross-Country course (last year she was one of many to pull out because of the state of the ground). I will be filming a set up piece with her earlier in the week and focussing on the other British Olympic hopefuls.
On the weekend of May 10th and 11th I will be racing at Ascot on the Saturday and then covering the 5th round of rugby league’s Challenge Cup on the Sunday. Racing is my first love but I have grown very fond of rugby league – it is a tough, fast moving sport in which the players are always friendly and approachable off the pitch and tough as nails on it. There has been plenty of talk about the sport recently because of Dwain Chambers, the sprinter who has signed for Castleford Tigers. I have to admire the bloke for taking on a sport that is so unforgiving but he will have to improve his coordination and his speed of thought if he is to have any chance of survival.
On May 12th, I will be hosting the Anglo-Irish Jump Racing Awards on behalf of the British Horseracing Authority and the Irish National Hunt Steeplechase Committee. This is a lunch at the Café Royal that honours the top performers in jump racing. Kauto Star will retain the Order of Merit but the award for staying chaser will be hard fought with his stable-mate Denman and I expect Denman to win that and probably horse of the year as well.
In the evening, I am going to the Sony Awards (the radio equivalent of the BAFTAs) as I have been nominated for Breaking News. I have been involved in Sony Award winning programmes but never as the main presenter so this will be a nerve-wracking affair. The programme in question was the middle Saturday of Wimbledon, which was a wash out as far as the tennis was concerned but turned into a major news day because of the bomb at Glasgow Airport. I was on the air at the time and instead of watching Roger Federer strut his stuff, I ended up doing 24 interviews with eye witnesses, security experts, MPs, travel experts, taxi drivers, pilots and anyone who had an intelligent view of what had happened. It was one of the most extraordinary days of broadcasting I have ever been involved in.
I then travel to Guernsey and Alderney to start recording the new series of Ramblings (a walking programme for Radio 4 now in its 24th series). On Sunday 18th May I am presenting Broadcasting House, which is a topical current affairs and media programme for Radio 4, so will be writing and interviewing for that for the rest of the week.
The week of the 19th involves some filming for The One Show in Kent and at Land’s End. We are doing a series of films about dogs who do extraordinary things so I am off to meet a Newfoundland who saves swimmers from drowning in the sea. I will also start recording interviews for Archive Hour, a Radio 4 programme that will examine the 1948 Olympics in London.
More Ramblings recording for the week of the 26th, this time in Ireland where I am walking in Sligo, Galway and County Limerick so fingers crossed for good weather.
On the 29th May, I will be at Epsom for Breakfast with the Stars, a ticketed event that previews the Derby. It always features horses that come to Epsom for a canter round the course as well as trainers, jockeys and owners with fancied runners. It’s a really fun morning out as well as an educational one.
On the last weekend in May, it’s the quarter-finals of the Challenge Cup so I would expect to be somewhere not far from St Helens, Leeds, Bradford or Wigan.
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