Pages of notes litter the table, multiple tabs are open on her computer and the already lengthy notes on the mobile phone are repeatedly being added to and tinkered with.
In the days leading up to the Cheltenham Festival, Francesca Cumani is in full-on revision mode.
“It’s a bit like studying for an exam and cramming as much info as you can,” she says a few days out from the Festival. “It’s best to have too much information rather than too little but I think over 50 per cent I’ve made a record of will never get used.
“But there’s not too many hiding places on live TV, and there’s quite a lot of getting to know your trainers, owners, Festival winners.”
Cumani will again front ITV Racing’s coverage with Ed Chamberlin along with the usual cavalcade of pundits, analysts and interviews for the four-day Festival when it gets underway tomorrow.
But while the preparation is similar to past years, there is a different feeling in the build-up, with the Cheltenham roar set to emanate from the stands once more a year on after spectators were locked out.
“It was eerily quiet last year,” she says. “We had slightly got used to it as there had been quite a few meetings like that. But Cheltenham is really known for the way that crowds welcome back winners into the winners’ enclosure.
“Our position is right there and it’s brilliant to witness the horses getting such a great reception. That’s a lot of what people do it for and, to not have it last year, was weird.
“I felt for people like Rachael Blackmore, who had a phenomenal week, and Henry de Bromhead. It goes down in the history books and they’re recorded as winners of those races but they couldn’t soak up the Cheltenham atmosphere.”
Cumani has worked at racecourses all over the world and, for noise alone, argues the Melbourne Cup — the so-called race that stops a nation — is the only other race day that gets close to the festival.
Despite her racing pedigree — her father is former racehorse trainer Luca Cumani — Cheltenham did not get into her psyche quite as much as others growing up.
As a teenager she would go to tracks with friends and family but the Cumanis were very much embedded in Flat racing and that is where her initial enthusiasm lay.
“It was funny coming back and doing it for ITV for the first time, and it was quite alien with the configuration of races, the familiarity of jockeys and trainers,” she says of her first Festival experience in front of the cameras in 2018.
“I had to learn from scratch but, in some ways, that’s good. It’s a once-a-year viewing event for some people and I’d ask the questions hopefully lots of people at home are asking. Racing can sometimes be guilty of assumed knowledge.
“And straight away I appreciated the passion for the horses and the way you feel like the majority of the crowd are there because they love the game rather than a day out.
“There’s the amphitheatre of the winners’ enclosure and the jockeys standing up and saluting the crowd, and them roaring back. You don’t get that in Flat racing and partly that’s the longevity of these horses and that built-up passion people have for them. So, you feel a big sense of responsibility when broadcasting.”
Last year, the focus was on both the lack of crowds — with Britain in the early stages of Covid — as well as trainer Gordon Elliott’s six-month ban. And Blackmore’s six wins helped change the dialogue around the sport.
“We got lucky, didn’t we?” says Cumani. “We really did need it and thank goodness we got it. Horse racing has an ability to allow people to dream and make some fairytales. The thing is you never know what will happen. And I love it.”
The Cheltenham Festival will be broadcast live on ITV1 tomorrow to Friday from 12.40pm to 4.30pm.
