Nothing amateur about this game but plenty to enjoy

It's been a high-pressure start to the year, a whirlwind of fast horses, screaming crowds and my heart beating like a drum solo from Led Zeppelin's John Bonham. No, I'm not talking about my new gig for ITV Racing but watching my horse Porlock Bay, known as Cecil, scrapping it out in point-to-points.

Broadcasting at the Cheltenham Festival and Royal Ascot is an honour and a privilege, but away from those glittering occasions point-to-pointing has always been my passion. After all, it's where I started out in this great game of ours.

The year was 1980 and I was a pimply-faced teenager supposed to be sitting through another interminable double physics lesson at Tiverton comprehensive in deepest Devon. Instead, I was careering up a makeshift gallop called The Moors near Bampton perched precariously on a brilliant old pointer called Clear Horizon.