The Cheltenham Festival is the first big test of racing's gamble in switching from Channel 4 to ITV to capitalise on the big occasions in the turf calendar.
But the average viewing figure of 795,000 from opening day looks to be a disappointing return on ITV's huge build-up to jump racing's showcase meeting. The audience is only 121,000 up on last year, when C4's fate was already doomed.
However, the ITV top brass and the sport's media rights partner RMG were surprisingly pleased with the numbers — plus the 12 per cent share of the audience and the advertising reaction — despite the figure being just 26,000 more than the average rating in 2012 when the acclaimed Highflyer produced the coverage before C4's ill-fated partnership with IMG.