ITV Racing presenter

This week, Alice Plunkett is part of the BAFTA-winning ITV Racing team showcasing the Grand National to nearly 10 million viewers. She reveals a chaotic moment off air, juggling domesticity and the time she was lost for words.

- Jennifer Donald

I never set out to be a telly presenter, I just ended up with a good tagline of being the only woman to have ridden round Badminton and Aintree, and the media liked that.
I rode at Badminton in 2000 and I’d started point-to pointing in my gap year, going on to ride in the Foxhunters over the Grand National fences at Aintree, aged 19, on a horse my grandpa had bred.

My breakthrough moment came when a TV company followed me at Blenheim.
I led the dressage then fell at the water, so it was perfect telly! The producer said, “You come across really well on camera, you should think about doing more of this,” and so it evolved.

I am notoriously chaotic.
I was once warming up at Gatcombe when my boss on The Racing Channel called to ask where I was. I was meant to be at Hereford Racecourse and it was 20 minutes before they went on air. I don’t know how, but I completely messed that up! So I juggled it all in the early days, but not very well.

I feel very lucky I’ve had this core passion of horses and they’ve taken me all over the world.