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State Man hammered the hill at Punchestown , to many people just watching the hill highlights and not the full game , he’s 9 , should be at his peak and he’s running on the all weather in front of pissed students …
GAG said: “If the programme works as it should to keep good mares in training, then the best mares should beat the best geldings 50% of the time which is pretty much what is happening now.”
This makes complete sense to me, and I think possibly some people are seeing mares winning as a problem that needs fixing, when it is nothing of the sort. However, mares winning the Champion Hurdle 50% of the time does start to feel unfair when they also have their own championship hurdle race that their male counterparts cannot contest.
I’d be very much in favour of moving the mares’ hurdle to elsewhere in the calendar, or downgrading it so that the best mares have to run in open company.
I don’t think people are seeing mares winning as a problem per say more that the 7lbs allowance (especially at the top end of the sport) maybe is now over generous and possibly needs at least to be reviewed because the best mares don’t specifically have to be as good as the best geldings to win, they really only have to be within 7lbs. You could easily argue that to half a tonne of racehorse are they really going to be overly affected in any way in a race if they were carrying an additional 7lbs on their back?
Its not like in Track and Field Athletics where you can categorically say that a male athlete is physically bigger and stronger than their female counterpart and therefore will always win if they are in direct competition against each other.
Annie Power would never had run in the Champion Hurdle had her owner/stable companion Faugheen not been ruled out due to injury and Golden Ace was a fortuitous winner thanks to State Man’s fall at the last when clear. Prior to Annie Power’s win in 2016 you had to go back to Flakey Dove in 1994 as the last mare to win and that was 10 years on from Dawn Run’s win (incidentally both of those mares only got a 5lbs allowance back then).
The Mares race in concept was a great idea but in terms of open competition it has been a blight on the Festival – for 6 years it stopped Quevega from running in either the Champion Hurdle or (the more likely) Stayers Hurdle, same with Apple’s Jade and in 2020 it stopped Honeysuckle from running in the Champion Hurdle, which considering she went on to win the next two renewals (beating the actual 2020 Champion Hurdler Epatante both times) actually deprived the sport of another triple Champion Hurdle winner and for the last two seasons it stopped Lossiemouth from running in the Champion Hurdle.
I would very much like to see that race moved but slightly hard to say where it could be moved to because Aintree would be out given they have the Aintree Hurdle over the same trip although I guess you could potentially fit it in at Cheltenham’s two day April meeting although trainers would probably complain about the ground being too quick there too.
At the very least I think the allowance should be reviewed.
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