OFTEN when you have such a wonderful feast of racing as we had at Leopardstown at the weekend, stay at home punters might have felt they missed out especially with the terrific scenes on Sunday after Faugheen had won.

But the RTÉ coverage was on the mark. Three and a half hours of afternoon TV over two days is not to be taken lightly and the national broadcaster gave us a fine spread.

On Saturday, Jane Mangan and Ruby together are the A-Team. You get honest opinion and insight. However, Ruby’s directness in interviewing trainers gave a prickly moment with Henry de Bromhead after Notebook’s win. “I was running him over the wrong distance.” “You have a habit of that...”

“If I took advice from you…” Lads, we’re all happy here! First rule of Fight Club – don’t question a trainer’s horse directly to his face.

The re-run of the Ladbrokes Dublin Chase had the two dissecting the performance of the first two and we got good insight from Walsh. “Yogi Breisner told me years ago. 10% of horses are natural jumpers, 10% can’t jump, and 80% can be taught to jump.” Chacun who had already got rave reviews from Willie Mullins post race, is a proper jumper.

But as Jane noted, “God, he’s a placid horse,” you hope Ruby’s assessment that Chacun Pour Soi is just a quiet horse as he stood, head down in the winner’s enclosure, he looked knackered with Caroline Norris stepping in to raise his head for a photo.

The betting ring was not always full, but the camera angle on Brian and Tom made it look so which did no harm.

Richard Pugh on commentary is excellent at calling the field, his depth of knowledge giving extra information where possible and ratchets it up for the finishes.

Capture the excitement

These days the racing action out on track is not enough and with phones and social media shots from the track capture the excitement, TV camera also need to be all-seeing and aware of all the reactions out on course.

We got pre-race shots of Notebook and Paloma Blue playing up, and we got up close in the box with Honeysuckle as she was saddled.

By Sunday, Ted had already got a lot of his chest with his stint on the Luck On Sunday RacingTV show from the track.

Among the usual suspects on the winners, a great, natural interview with Katie Walsh out on the track, came from Kevin Brouder after Treacysenniscorthy’s win. “He got lonely, he started bollockin’ and looking back, one ear at the horses behind him. At the second last I said, ‘come up now son, I need ya’!

There was another nice shot of two of the men who had a good weekend – Peter Molony embracing Gordon Elliott out on track as Delta Work made it two Grade 1s this season.

It all ended with a tear in the eye for those who have been regular viewers. A lovely montage of Robert Hall perfectly captured the station’s anchor man genial contribution to TV racing for the last 30 years.

If Faugheen had put a tear in your eye, this multiplied them. The man himself felt them too, standing with his comrades and some of the leading jockeys in the parade ring. Even another kiss from Ted couldn’t hide the touch of sadness.