21/03/2024
Richard Forristal. Talks sense about the future of Cheltenham. Well to me anyway!
Last week's worryingly subdued Cheltenham Festival might finally be the catalyst for change required to save what used to be such a sacred institution. At least we hope it might be.
For years now, those of us who have been calling for an overhaul of a programme that has drastically diluted exactly what it was that made the week so singular have been met with plenty of hostility. Many refused to acknowledge how the product was disintegrating before our eyes.
In this space two years ago, after record crowds of 280,267 poured into Cheltenham, I compared the festival's ailing status to the demise of Manchester United. Under the Glazers' regime, defined by the bottom line, the club took its eyes off what mattered most and the team lost its identity.
Cheltenham did the same but Jockey Club Racecourses did not lift its head long enough from the trough to look around. Now the chickens have come home to roost and suddenly alarm bells are ringing. Inexplicably, the BHA chief executive Julie Harrington somehow managed to, in effect, link Irish racing's success with British racing's failures. It's them, not us.
This is the head of an industry funded by a levy on bookmaker profits that has driven the saturation of the sport to an unsustainable level and rendered it perilously vulnerable to the draconian affordability checks. I'm not going to labour the point I made here a few weeks ago but for too long the answer was more racing.
It's certainly not Irish domination of Grade 1s that is damaging the sport, as Harrington argued. What's damaged the sport is the race to the bottom that has prevailed for the past 20 years in Britain: too much racing, not nearly enough prize-money or horses, and an unwillingness or inability to tailor the structure in such a way as to promote meaningful competition.
A failure of the authorities on both sides of the Irish Sea to pull together to create a coherent architecture is also worth acknowledging, and let's not forget the problems here also run deep once you scratch the surface. Participation numbers have collapsed and the top-heavy Graded pyramid has enabled the strong to get stronger. There has been a tacit acceptance of this from Horse Racing Ireland with various measures to alleviate the situation, but, as we saw again last week, beneath Irish racing's main protagonists the depth has disintegrated.
As for Cheltenham, the recession in Britain clearly plays a part, but an attendance collapse of nearly 20 per cent in two years is damning. Yes, there were some epic highs, as ever, last week but the atmosphere was eerily dead at times, which illustrates the extent to which the races are failing to fire the imagination. Short-priced favourites, underwhelming championship races and the overbearing influence exerted by one stable are ailments that can be tackled.
There have been a variety of sensible suggestions made in recent days, but, whatever happens, surgery will not please everybody. Stakeholders have to embrace the notion there won't be races for every horse at the festival, that its previous championship ethos has to prevail, and Cheltenham must recognise the imperative to reduce prices.
Shrinking the four cards to six-race spreads would help to justify that. Not everyone is fond of that idea either, but we have to go back if we want to move forward again. The programme needs to be refined and there are logical steps that can be taken.
As touched on here a fortnight ago, the Turners and Ryanair should go. The onus has to be on examining horses' limits where the air is thinnest, and their removal would immediately enhance the Arkle, the Brown Advisory, the Champion Chase and the Gold Cup. It would also eliminate a lot of the protracted nonsense about who might run where.
Losing the Albert Bartlett would do the same, and the Mares' Novices' Hurdle has to go as well. There is a wealth of other options for mares. If the mares' hurdle is downgraded to a Grade 2, it is then up to the owners of the very best mares whether they want to be a big fish in a small pond or test their mettle in open waters. Breeders will still have two festival races restricted to mares as incentives but those races should not be invitingly soft alternatives for championship contenders.
Kevin Blake reignited the debate on ITV about excluding novices from the open handicaps, and I'd be with him on that. It's a device that could be deployed exclusively at Cheltenham, so the likes of State Man would have to be aimed higher than he was when pitching up in the County Hurdle off 141 two years ago.
I would also turn the National Hunt Chase into a rated novice, maybe to a mark of 135, or 140 at the most. There's no need to scoff. It's not that long ago it was confined to horses who were maidens at the start of the season, so removing top-class prospects doesn't need to leave anyone choking on their chips.
A rated chase like that would mean horses of the calibre of Corbetts Cross, Gaillard Du Mesnil, Stattler, Galvin, Tiger Roll and co would now be compelled to run in the Brown Advisory, and wouldn't that be dandy? The amateurs still have their three races and trainers of capable novices just below Graded level might get a chance on the big stage.
Finally, switch the cross-country chase back to a handicap, and turn the conditional jockeys' race into a novice handicap over three miles. Again, limit it to horses rated no more than 135 or 140 and, with the Albert Bartlett gone, it might be an opportunity for the less well-heeled with a useful staying novice hurdler who won't quite cut it at the top.
Clearly such a revamp will encounter a world of resistance, especially from those who have come to benefit most from the festival's current largesse. In short, there will no longer be a wealth of options for an operation of Willie Mullins' heft to spread its equine riches. That, in turn, will have the inevitable knock-on effect of motivating a share of owners to look elsewhere for an edge – which is exactly as it should be. It's actually what used to be known as healthy competition.
