Afrigather It’s at all times darkest earlier than the daybreak. Within the days main as much as the latest Cheltenham Competition, the headline of this column was ‘The Cheltenham Competition is approaching the brink’.
The phrases might have appeared dramatic, however they have been chosen rigorously. They sought to sum up what was feared to be the upcoming end result of a few years of alarms being sounded and deep issues being expressed across the course of journey of the Cheltenham Competition as Nationwide Hunt racing’s essential occasion.
Some had hoped the principle hazard had handed in 2022 after the Jockey Membership had been talked down from the ledge of constructing what would have been a catastrophically unhealthy choice to increase the assembly to 5 days.
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Nonetheless, a mixture of an uninspiring season, the absence of a number of the sport’s largest gamers and weaker-than-expected ticket gross sales threatened to ruthlessly expose the implications of permitting the race programme of the Cheltenham Competition to turn into so grossly diluted because the assembly was prolonged to 4 days in 2005.
Everyone seems to be entitled to their very own emotions and opinions, however for me it was the flattest Cheltenham Competition I’ve skilled in over 20 years within the sport.
I used to be removed from alone in feeling that method. Coupled with disappointing attendances and a flood of complaints concerning the client expertise, final yr’s Cheltenham Competition actually did really feel prefer it needed to be a watershed second for the assembly.
The requires change grew louder than ever and the hope was the Jockey Membership and BHA must take motion.
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New-look Nationwide Hunt Chase a welcome change
Following a prolonged session course of, the Jockey Membership has introduced a sequence of adjustments that search to deal with a number of the most urgent issues concerning the Cheltenham Competition.
So, what to make of all of it? It will not come as a shock to anybody that my focus is on the adjustments to the race programme.
When it comes to the precedence checklist of areas that demanded addressing within the race programme, the novice chases would have been proper on the prime of the checklist for a lot of. Three Grade Ones and a Grade Two was clearly far too many, enabling a lot ducking, diving and dilution that so frustrates the fanbase that wishes to see the very best racing in opposition to the very best.
The Jockey Membership has handled the matter in exactly the way in which I had hoped they might by changing the Turners Novices’ Chase with a restricted novices’ handicap chase and changing the Nationwide Hunt Chase right into a 0-145 novices’ handicap chase.
These adjustments ought to assist to funnel the easiest novice chasers into the 2 remaining Grade One novice chases. With a niche of simply over a mile in distance now separating these two choices, this may provide rather more readability concerning what race the very best novice chasers are more likely to goal from a a lot earlier stage of the season.
Not solely will this ship a lot deeper Grade One novice chases on the assembly, it can make them a lot simpler to advertise and construct as much as prematurely as uncertainly can be so drastically lowered. Preferrred!
One side of the novice chase adjustments that was extra of a shock was the choice to open the newly-modified Nationwide Hunt Chase to skilled riders, thus lowering the variety of beginner rider races on the assembly from three to 2.
This would possibly not go down nicely in some quarters, however talking plainly, the beginner rider ranks grew to become unhealthily polarised lengthy earlier than the Nationwide Hunt coach ranks did. It would not be tough to argue that having three races with such a drastic vary in rider potential from the very best to the worst isn’t acceptable on the most important stage of the game.
In addition to that, whereas nobody in energy is ever more likely to admit it, one will get the distinct impression that because the notorious Nationwide Hunt Chase of 2019 which noticed simply 4 finishers and a number of riders being banned for “persevering with within the race when it gave the impression to be opposite to the horse’s welfare” the authorities have been searching for a approach to cut back the variety of beginner rider races on the assembly. Whether or not that’s the case or not, we could have one much less beginner race in 2025 both method.
Handicap rule adjustments ought to assist area dimension points
Cheltenham have introduced a sequence of huge adjustments for 2025
The subsequent change centres on the Glenfarclas Cross Nation Chase which can be altered from a situations race to a restricted handicap with a 20lb weight vary. Once more, the logic is obvious. Whereas it is going to be to the detriment of some much-loved veterans that can now not have as winnable a goal to intention at, it grew to become clear the situations of the race very a lot favoured essentially the most highly effective trainers who’ve a lot equine ammo that they might intention horses rated 160+ on the race.
That is not what the race was designed for and returning it to a handicap will make it a way more aggressive contest that may be focused with life like hopes by a a lot bigger group of trainers and house owners. Thoughts, it will not shock if the connections of gifted veterans nonetheless goal the race regardless of the change in situations.
Whereas it could not seize too most of the headlines, the influence of the rise in variety of qualifying runs required to be eligible for non-novice handicap hurdles and chases on the Cheltenham Competition might be important. What grew to become often called the ‘State Man rule’ noticed the required variety of qualifying runs for handicap hurdles on the assembly elevated from three to 4 in 2022.
Proof from all of the handicap hurdles and chases on the assembly lately demonstrates to a stark extent that trainers have labored out that lightly-raced novices are the correct ones to run in these races. Certainly, within the final 5 years, 30 per cent of the runners and 53 per cent of the winners of handicaps on the Cheltenham Competition have been novices.
Growing the variety of qualifying runs required for handicap chases to 4 and for handicap hurdles to 5 will assist tip the steadiness away from lightly-raced horses and again within the favour of extra uncovered handicappers for whom these races are designed to cater for.
The hope is that this variation can even have a optimistic influence on the sector sizes and competitiveness of the novice hurdles and novice chases on the assembly.
Of the smaller adjustments, the elimination of the penalties for the Daybreak Run Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle was a no brainer.
The logic that justified the penalties was at all times very shaky certainly and the latest renewal of the race noticed the much-feared penalties of the penalties play out on the monitor with a mare that had been cleverly campaigned to keep away from selecting up a penalty beating three mares that carried 5lb penalties.
Having a state of affairs the place the fourth-best mare on the weights can win what is meant to be the race that each one novice hurdling mares aspire to is clearly unsatisfactory and it is just proper that it has now been modified.
Modifications do not truly go far sufficient
Lossiemouth comes house in splendid isolation within the 2024 Mares’ Hurdle
My largest points aren’t with what has modified, however what hasn’t modified. There are two areas specifically that demanded consideration and so they have been left just about unchanged: novice hurdles and the mares’ programme.
These concerned on this course of regarded on the novice chase programme and really clearly concluded that three Grade Ones and a Grade Two have been far too many and duly axed that down to simply two Grade Ones.
In mild of that, I wrestle to see how the identical group of individuals can take a look at the novice hurdle programme of three Grade Ones, a Grade Two mares’ novice hurdle and the Triumph Hurdle (not being a novice race, however the overwhelming majority of runners in it are novices) and conclude that no change is required to it.
The very same points which have blighted the novice chase programme on the Cheltenham Competition have been a long-term challenge within the novice hurdle programme too. The proliferation of choices results in nice quantities of uncertainly within the build-up to the assembly and produces a diluted finish product as essentially the most highly effective trainers break up their aces as greatest they will.
People who made the choice to not change the novice hurdles have defended it through the info on horse populations suggesting to them that the state of affairs is not as urgent as it’s within the novice chase division and that the adjustments to the qualifying standards for the handicaps on the assembly promise to assist area sizes within the novice hurdles. Nonetheless, I strongly suspect we can be revisiting the topic of the diluted Grade One novice hurdle programme once more within the close to future.
Thoughts, the most important supply of controversy is more likely to be that of the choice to not make significant adjustments to the mares’ programme. The adverse influence that the Mares’ Hurdle and to a lesser extent the Mares’ Chase can have on championship races on the Cheltenham Competition has been an enormous supply of heated debate over time.
The newest and significantly stark instance of it got here final March when the connections of the deeply-exciting Lossiemouth determined to run her within the Mares’ Hurdle relatively than the Champion Hurdle.
This robbed the primary day of the assembly of what would have been an important conflict between State Man and Lossiemouth and left us with two snooze-fest Grade Ones that produced winners at 2/5 and eight/13 with the viewers being informed “certain you may see them take one another on subsequent yr”. Is it any marvel the ambiance on day one of many assembly was so flat?
Proposed adjustments to the mares’ races on the Cheltenham Competition have at all times been extremely controversial as the event of the broader mares’ programme has been one of many brightest success tales of the final 15 years of Nationwide Hunt racing.
The mares’ races on the Cheltenham Competition have been positioned as the top of this very profitable motion and any calls to make adjustments to them are typically unfairly represented as an assault on the broader pursuits of Nationwide Hunt mares.
To be very clear, it’s doable to be an enormous supporter of the development of Nationwide Hunt mares while additionally seeing the larger image that the mares’ races on the Cheltenham Competition can have a detrimental influence on the competitiveness of the assembly.
Whereas it may need been asking for an excessive amount of to transform the Mares’ Hurdle and the Mares’ Chase to mares’ handicaps, a middle-ground compromise of fixing the Mares’ Hurdle again to a Grade Two with Grade One penalties would have drastically raised the potential for reaching the specified objectives of encouraging elite mares to run within the open-class championship races which are so in want in depth of high quality while making the Mares’ Hurdle a extra life like goal for the various relatively than the few.
The conclusion given by these with the facility to make adjustments was that there are not any significant adjustments that might be made to both the Mares’ Hurdle or Mares’ Chase that would not materially threat the advantages presently being derived. I respectfully disagree with that conclusion and strongly suspect that the situations of those races will demand revisiting within the close to future.
