Ant and Dec team up with Scudamore and Dunwoody for TV show

Updated: 21:53 EST, 17 February 2011

Britain’s most popular TV double act – Ant and Dec – came face to face with two of racing’s best-known names this week.

The effervescent Geordie duo were at Kempton on Wednesday to film a racing slot for their Saturday evening game show Push The Button when a member of competing families rode against each other in a horse race after, supposedly, having their first riding lessons in the morning.

Suppliers of the coaching for the respective teams were eight-time champion jump jockey and Racemail columnist Peter Scudamore plus his old weighing room sparring partner Richard Dunwoody, a triple champion and the last jockey to lift the title before AP McCoy began his 15-season domination of the jockeys’ championship.

Whose advice paid off will be revealed in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, adrenaline junkie Dunwoody shows no sign of slowing down.

The former rider now spends much of his time in Berlin but is currently planning a trip to war-torn Afghanistan.

The new system of Tariff introduced by the group representing owners, trainers and jockeys – the Horsemens Group – has certainly caused a stir and divided opinion.

Those involved in the sport are asked to sign up and not enter in races whose value is below the level the Horsemen believe is reasonable in their fight to arrest the decline in prizemoney.

The plan appears to be gathering momentum. Around 300 new names were added to the list this week taking the number of committed supporters to over 1,850.

They include top trainers like Henry Cecil, John Gosden, Paul Nicholls and Mick Channon; leading jockeys AP McCoy, Martin Dwyer and Ted Durcan and owners Jaber Abdullah, Paul Barber and Grand National winner Vida Bingham.

AP McCoy has indicated that sentiment will play no part in his choice of Grand National mount in April with his 2010 winner Don’t Push It not guaranteed his vote given back-to-back winners of the most famous jumps race in the world are rare.

One option for McCoy is Quolibet, the new French recruit bought by owner JP McManus and now in trainer Jonjo O’Neill’s stable.

Quolibet has fallen in three of his last five races and ran out at the first obstacle in his first schooling session since joining O’Neill.

‘Not a great start,’ said a smiling O’Neill.

The Breeders’ Cup this week unveiled their new logo for the 28th running of the meeting on November 4 -5.

The purple motif combines the traditional Breeders’ Cup purple logo with the iconic Twin Towers that are the enduring image of the Churchill Downs track in Kentucky where almost 115,000 fans attended the two-day meeting last November.

Racing presenters, like policemen, appear to be getting younger to The Captain but even he was surprised when told that that Racing’s Broadcaster of the Year – ATR’s Matt Chapman – did not know that Brian Fletcher had won the Grand National twice on iconic Red Rum (1973 & 1974).

Fletcher was a guest of honour at aLondon reception on Tuesday when the weights for the great Aintree race were revealed.

The former jockey, who also won the National in 1968 on Red Alligator, is on the voting shortlist to be inducted into the Aintee Hall of Fame alongside the likes of four-time winning trainer Fred Rimell, 1981 heroes Bob Champion and Aldaniti, and Tommy Carberry, a National winner both as a jockey and as a trainer.

Votes can be cast on www.grandnationallegends.com