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26th November 2025
05:08pm GMT
The Paddock launches today, a brand new weekly show bringing together some of the most legendary voices in racing: Oli Bell, Nick Luck, Rishi Persad and Tom Stanley.
In episode one, they’ve kicked off with a proper heavy-hitting guest, the one and only John Francome.
Across the hour, the panel dig into everything: today’s best jockeys, the state of the industry, what TV racing used to be like behind the scenes, and why certain riders are 'born with a brain in their head'.
But the moment people will be talking about, and the clip that had the room in absolute stitches, is Francome revisiting that infamous joke that 'offended Ireland'.
He explained towards the end of the show: "We used to have this thing called The Picture Puzzle and people used to write in every week and say 'We can't take part, we live in Ireland'.
"So Andrew works the oracle, they get all the electric sorted out, the telephone system, and he says 'Make sure to tell people if they're watching from Ireland, they can enter this competition'.
"So I said, 'If you live in Ireland and you know how to use a telephone', I said, 'This is the number for you to ring!'"
He added: "It's a throwaway line. It's a joke. No harm. The switchboard was jammed. The fella Michael Grade phones up and says 'Make sure he apologises straight away'.
"So I get back on and I start smirking, as you would, half way through doing it. And they make me do it again. I said 'If you haven't heard it for the first time!'
“It was a joke. No harm. What a load of fuss about nothing,” he laughed before Oli Bell joked: “Do you want to apologise again?”
It’s the perfect showcase of what The Paddock is setting out to be.
It's honest, unfiltered, and full of racing’s best stories told by the people who were actually there.
