Ah, so now Ryan Moore is expected to have a microphone in his face, giving an interview, whilst he's getting changed into his colours for the next race and weighing out? How's that for multi-tasking! Maybe the camera should have stayed in his face whilst he spoke to connections of the horse he was - shock, horror! - having to ride in the next race on from the Coronation Cup.
You're just conjuring up extreme examples to suit a case now. For a start the word 'interview' needs taking in context, it's no different to a couple of banal questions the type of which football managers routinely field just after half-time. It's hardly an interview in any classic understanding of the word
A lot of pieces can also be shot in advance in simply edited into the coverage anyway, and since half of these so called interviews take place with the winner coming back in from the track, the idea that he's being chased into a weighing room is selected for effect I'm afraid.
One of the best ways of ensuring you aren't misquoted of course is to make your comments on live television. Most sports people get misrepresented by a mischeivous media at some point, as indeed we do in other areas of our lives, but view it as an occupational hazard. It's just a sad fact that the 4th estate don't allows uphold their end of the bargain. Funnily enough though, you have less chance of being so if you co-operate a bit. I've had reason to go 'on and off' the record with journos before now and have never had an 'off the record' comment reported or hinted at. They've even made copy amendments when I've had second thoughts about the senstivity of information i've disclosed, or the choice of words used. My experience on the most part is they've been pretty good and not wanting to drop a source 'in it', but every now and then will get something go wrong (normally a sub-editor trying to find an angle that doesn't exist).
I'll give you one example from the 1987 British GP, as title chasing Nigel Mansell sat on the grid about 20 minutes from the off, and under a lot more pressure than any rider would be in a horse race. The BBC approached him for a few simple words. As the microphone neared him it was obvious he was in conversation with his pit and going through what I could only describe as a pre-flight check list (probably quite intense and very important work).
The microphone clearly picked him having technical conversations, until he saw the BBC. He said "Just got to disconnect for a few minutes. Steve Ryder BBC wants a word". He completed some radio some sign off garb, and then cooly turned round Ryder and said "How are you Steve? enjoying the day?" before going on to talk briefly about his chances, and offer some reassuring words to his watching public. Mansell won the race incidentally.
It's very simple really, you just provide a Q&A session after racing for the more intense interviews as has been suggested. Football routinely does it with their superficial MotM awards. The match sponsor has the priviledge of naming the MotM and presenting them with a bottle of something after the game in the players lounge. The winner of the award is invariably the highest profile player regardless of how well he plays, because the sponsor wants a good PR photo to shovel into their corporate newsletter. Does the footballer say I've finished my work I'm paid to play football and now I'm off home? No. Again, they contractually bound and fined if they fail to, to attend post match sponsors events
Jockeys need to realise (as indeed some do) that the media is their shop window and without it their sport and livelihood withers. It's an uneasy Faustian pact they need to make, but its no different in principle to the same facing other sports people, many of whom are subject to infinately more intrusive media scrutiny than a 'borderline sport' like racing. For the most part the general sporting public have little interest in racing and it just passes them by. Jockey drunk in night club is immaterial when compared to footballer's girlfriend gets thrown on to table full of drinks, so they're hardly being exposed to the sharp end of media interest and interrogation (probably because few people outside of a cosy little group are interested).
What i do know is that any sport without profile will eventually suffer, and the fallout will go right the way back down the line. The media is the vehicle that provides that profile. Some people might not like the idea, and choose to adopt a short-term perspective laced as it is with a sense of pompous misplaced superiority, but other sports who already enjoy a natural advantage by having a better product in the first place are more obliging and more innovative in their inter-action and access. If racing thinks it can afford not to embrace the mass media because
it's to good or
to important, then I'm afraid its sadly deluded.
The other point I keep raising, to no avail, is the obligation to sponsors. I think it's critically important to differentiate between the two. Failure to engage with race sponsors should be penalised by some code of conduct. The media I can cut a lot more slack to because of other considerations, but all these advocates who seem to think that jockeys and trainers have no repsonsibility beyond the narrow confines of their next owner seem to be ducking out of this one. Like I've said three times now, they're the first people to complain at low prize money.
