Cheltenham Festival: Kevin Blake embraces modifications and hopes it might be begin of brighter future for jumps racing

It is at all times darkest earlier than the daybreak. In the times main as much as the latest Cheltenham Festival, the headline of this column was ‘The Cheltenham Festival is approaching the brink’.

The phrases might have appeared dramatic, however they had been chosen fastidiously. They sought to sum up what was feared to be the upcoming fruits of a few years of alarms being sounded and deep considerations being expressed across the route of journey of the Cheltenham Festival as National Hunt racing’s most important occasion.

Some had hoped the principle hazard had handed in 2022 after the Jockey Club had been talked down from the ledge of creating what would have been a catastrophically unhealthy choice to increase the assembly to 5 days.

However, a mix of an uninspiring season, the absence of a few of the sport’s greatest gamers and weaker-than-expected ticket gross sales threatened to ruthlessly expose the results of permitting the race programme of the Cheltenham Festival to develop into so grossly diluted for the reason that assembly was prolonged to 4 days in 2005.

Everyone is entitled to their very own emotions and opinions, however for me it was the flattest Cheltenham Festival I’ve skilled in over 20 years within the recreation.

I used to be removed from alone in feeling that manner. Coupled with disappointing attendances and a flood of complaints concerning the shopper expertise, final 12 months’s Cheltenham Festival 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 Club and BHA must take motion.

New-look National Hunt Chase a welcome change

Following a prolonged session course of, the Jockey Club has introduced a sequence of modifications that search to handle a few of the most urgent considerations in regards to the Cheltenham Festival.

So, what to make of all of it? It will not come as a shock to anybody that my focus is on the modifications to the race programme.

In phrases of the precedence checklist of areas that demanded addressing within the race programme, the novice chases would have been proper on the high 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 desires to see one of the best racing in opposition to one of the best.

The Jockey Club has handled the matter in exactly the best way I had hoped they’d by changing the Turners Novices’ Chase with a restricted novices’ handicap chase and changing the National Hunt Chase right into a 0-145 novices’ handicap chase.

These modifications 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 one of the 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 tremendously decreased. Ideal!

One side of the novice chase modifications that was extra of a shock was the choice to open the newly-modified National Hunt Chase to skilled riders, thus decreasing the variety of beginner rider races on the assembly from three to 2.

This will not go down properly in some quarters, however talking plainly, the beginner rider ranks grew to become unhealthily polarised lengthy earlier than the National Hunt coach ranks did. It would not be troublesome to argue that having three races with such a drastic vary in rider capacity from one of the best to the worst just isn’t applicable on the most important stage of the game.

As properly as that, whereas nobody in energy is ever more likely to admit it, one will get the distinct impression that for the reason that notorious National Hunt Chase of 2019 which noticed simply 4 finishers and a number of riders being banned for “continuing in the race when it appeared to be contrary to the horse’s welfare” the authorities had been searching for a solution to scale back the variety of beginner rider races on the assembly. Whether that’s the case or not, we could have one much less beginner race in 2025 both manner.

Handicap rule modifications ought to assist subject measurement points

The subsequent change centres on the Glenfarclas Cross Country Chase which can be altered from a situations race to a restricted handicap with a 20lb weight vary. Again, the logic is evident. While it will likely 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 sensible hopes by a a lot bigger group of trainers and homeowners. Mind, it will not shock if the connections of gifted veterans nonetheless goal the race regardless of the change in situations.

While it could not seize too lots of the headlines, the affect of the rise in variety of qualifying runs required to be eligible for non-novice handicap hurdles and chases on the Cheltenham Festival might be vital. What grew to become often known as the ‘State Man rule’ noticed the required variety of qualifying runs for handicap hurdles on the assembly elevated from three to 4 in 2022.

Evidence 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 proper ones to run in these races. Indeed, within the final 5 years, 30 per cent of the runners and 53 per cent of the winners of handicaps on the Cheltenham Festival had been novices.

Increasing 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 may also have a constructive affect on the sector sizes and competitiveness of the novice hurdles and novice chases on the assembly.

Of the smaller modifications, the removing of the penalties for the Dawn 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 observe with a mare that had been cleverly campaigned to keep away from choosing 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’s only proper that it has now been modified.

Changes do not really go far sufficient

My greatest points usually are not with what has modified, however what hasn’t modified. There are two areas specifically that demanded consideration they usually have been left just about unchanged: novice hurdles and the mares’ programme.

Those concerned on this course of seemed on the novice chase programme and really clearly concluded that three Grade Ones and a Grade Two had been far too many and duly axed that down to only two Grade Ones.

In gentle of that, I battle 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 Festival have been a long-term problem 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 cut up their aces as finest they will.

Those that made the choice to not change the novice hurdles have defended it by way of 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 modifications to the qualifying standards for the handicaps on the assembly promise to assist subject sizes within the novice hurdles. However, I strongly suspect we can be revisiting the topic of the diluted Grade One novice hurdle programme once more within the close to future.

Mind, the most important supply of controversy is more likely to be that of the choice to not make significant modifications to the mares’ programme. The destructive affect that the Mares’ Hurdle and to a lesser extent the Mares’ Chase can have on championship races on the Cheltenham Festival has been an enormous supply of heated debate over time.

The most up-to-date 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 quite 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 “sure you might see them take each other on next year”. Is it any surprise the ambiance on day one of many assembly was so flat?

Proposed modifications to the mares’ races on the Cheltenham Festival 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 National Hunt racing.

The mares’ races on the Cheltenham Festival have been positioned as the head of this very profitable motion and any calls to make modifications to them are usually unfairly represented as an assault on the broader pursuits of National Hunt mares.

To be very clear, it’s doable to be an enormous supporter of the development of National Hunt mares while additionally seeing the larger image that the mares’ races on the Cheltenham Festival can have a detrimental affect on the competitiveness of the assembly.

While 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 adjusting the Mares’ Hurdle again to a Grade Two with Grade One penalties would have tremendously raised the opportunity of attaining 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 sensible goal for the numerous quite than the few.

The conclusion given by these with the facility to make modifications was that there aren’t any significant modifications that might be made to both the Mares’ Hurdle or Mares’ Chase that would not materially danger 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.