Ruby Walsh can console himself that his was not the only major stumble today. John Inverdale’s was just as dramatic, and probably more embarrassing.
The gaffe-ridden broadcaster was forced to make an immediate apology for his “slip of the tongue” while covering the Cheltenham Festival for BBC radio - although the word he used might be described as far more offensive than that. In the midst of interviewing John Francome, the former jockey, and present jockey Lizzie Kelly, Inverdale’s brain somehow replaced the word “tinted” with the somewhat more surprising “c***ed”.
The 57-year-old said: “This is looking at it through rose-c***ed... rose-tinted glasses from the past... I apologise there for a slip of the tongue, but Lizzy, your love of the sport just shines through.”
There was immediate reaction on social media, with a plethora of jokes about the sports presenter’s choice of eyeware. However, it is not the first faux pas that he has made.
The BBC received more than 700 complaints after the Wimbledon women’s final in 2013 when he said of the winner, Marion Bartoli: “I wonder if her dad did say to her when she was 12, 13, 14, ‘Listen, you’re never going to be a looker. You’re never going to be somebody like a Sharapova, you’re never going to be somebody with long legs, so you have to compensate for that.’ ”
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Inverdale later told the Radio Times that he had been struggling with hay fever at the time, although sexist comments are not known to be a side-effect of a high pollen count.
After today’s incident, a BBC spokesperson said: “It was a slip of the tongue and John apologised immediately afterwards.”