Good piece by Lee Mottershead in the RP today:
Cheltenham took an unnecessary risk – could a defence have been mounted had it gone horribly wrong?
The drama in the dark revived memories of a grim episode that led to a famous court case
Sometimes you can be rewarded for taking a chance. Sometimes you get punished. Forty years ago on what is now Cheltenham Festival Trials day, there was a notable example of a bold call that proved to be cursed.
Dawn Run was having her final run before seeking to become the first horse to complete the Champion Hurdle-Gold Cup double. Although relatively inexperienced over fences, she was expected to post an impressive success in the Holsten Distributors Chase, a precursor for what is now the Cotswold Chase.
All was going according to plan as Tony Mullins guided the great mare to the sixth fence from home.
“So far not a semblance of a serious mistake,” said Julian Wilson in his BBC Grandstand commentary. “This is only her fourth race over fences but certainly her best performance of jumping so far. And this is the last open ditch. And she’s a bit close. And she’s gone!”
Dawn Run, who famously went on to win the Gold Cup two months later, made a mess of the ditch and unseated her jockey, who landed on his feet. So, too, on Saturday did all those involved in deciding that Cheltenham’s final race was safe to run. What we do not yet know is how fortunate they were. What we can say with absolute certainty is that regardless of the race’s outcome, a risk was taken in the gathering gloom.
In a Racing TV interview between Lydia Hislop and Cheltenham’s clerk of the course Jon Pullin, Hislop asked Pullin if the large hole that had been discovered close to the two-furlong pole was potentially a drainage hole. Pullin accepted it could be. That being the case, one wonders if any of those involved in determining if the Grade 2 Classic Novices’ Hurdle ought to be run had any recollections of what took place at Doncaster in September 1989.
On the opening afternoon of the four-day St Leger meeting, the Paul Cook-ridden Madraco galloped into a hole and fell during the Portland Handicap, leading to a three-horse pile-up. Following a track inspection racing was permitted to continue but two days later Able Player fell around 100 yards from where the previous incident had occurred. The meeting was abandoned and the St Leger was transferred to Ayr the following Saturday.
Cook broke ribs, a collarbone, hand and foot. His career was finished by the fall, as was that of fellow rider Ian Johnson. Madraco suffered a serious injury. Fortunately, his life was saved.
In the High Court case that followed four years later it was established that Madraco’s fall had been caused by a hole in the track that resulted from drainage work. Doncaster’s council owners were ordered to pay Cook £352,000 in compensation, equivalent to well over £900,000 today.
Addressing the court, Mr Justice Drake said: “The truth as I find it is that when other horses ran over the same ground before and after Madraco fell, they were quite simply lucky. It just happened that they didn’t hit on a bad spot while Madraco did.
“In other words, it was all a matter of chance as to which horses would be injured. If the bookmakers, present on 13 September, 1989, had known the full facts, they would have been justified in running a side book on a form of Russian roulette: which was to be the unlucky horse and rider?”
Given the size of the hole found at Cheltenham, it seems safe to assume the horses and jockeys who took part in the three hurdle races run at the track on Saturday may also have been winners in a game of Russian roulette. Cheltenham and its Jockey Club owners may have been similarly fortunate to escape a damaging legal case.
That is not to say the hole’s emergence was anyone’s fault, nor can we know for long how it had been there. Exploratory work will determine why there was a hole, while one would imagine a wider assessment of the track will take place in advance of the festival. It is, however, perfectly reasonable to question whether there could possibly have been sufficient time on Saturday to conclude that conditions were incontrovertibly safe for the final race to take place.
That it was an event of some significance and a Cheltenham Festival trial should have been – and hopefully was – wholly irrelevant. It would have been disappointing to lose the race but, in reality, that would never have happened, with Sandown’s card this weekend having offered an alternative home. That would also have provided a chance to hold the race in daylight, as opposed to the near darkness that rendered the photo-finish camera useless.
Those who ultimately had to make the decision on continuing or cancelling were in an unenviable position, one that must have been extremely stressful. They knew they were in a race against time, yet that, in itself, should have resulted in stumps being drawn, for it is hard not to believe more time would have been given to examining the course if the hole had been found much earlier in the day.
All racing, and particularly jump racing, is about risk and reward. There will not always be agreement about what represents unnecessary risk but based on what we know, and bearing what we still do not know and could not have known as afternoon turned to evening, the chance that was taken at Cheltenham may have been excessive.
The sport arguably dodged a bullet on Saturday. Where would it be now, however, if something had gone wrong in that final contest? In such circumstances, would the explanation for allowing a race to be run on a course where a large, unexplained hole had been found much less than an hour earlier have sounded convincing? Could the BHA and Jockey Club have been accused of staging a game of Russian roulette? The answer to those questions surely tells us all we need to know.