Alice Plunkett: around the racing world with girl next door

In a notional scrum of stereotypical sports hacks and presenters, Alice Plunkett stands out a mile, and it's not just because she isn't a middle-aged man with a far-distant hairline and an oncoming paunch.

Channel 4 Racing has its experts and its gurus, its smoothies and its hard-hitters, but in the final analysis (and by George has there been a lot of final analysis), nobody brings to the table quite what Alice brings.

Whenever the producers have needed somebody who knows everybody to go up to anybody and get them chatting like a long-lost friend, they've always called on Alice. It's a gift she has that others simply can't cultivate, but for all that it has served her well, it also makes her very easy to underestimate as nice, natural and not a whole lot more.