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When you get a field of about 20 jumpers or bumpers who are all trying for their lives, you are bound to get the messy starts that we saw yesterday(and will no doubt see more of). Several horses that need to be near the pace might as well have stayed at home because they were baulked or caught flat -footed by the the unpredictable behaviour of the starter. I don’t know what the answer is, but there were two starts that I saw which were a shambles.
Contrast these starts with what we see when 20 novices are dispatched on any other day and we are bound to think that many of these novices are not there to win.
I agree, the Arkle start was particularly messy. I know they want the horses walking in, but surely it is better to have a slightly uneven start than to have to call them all back.
To these untrained eyes, it looks as if the chute from where they bring the horses is too close to the starting line so they don’t get a chance to get lined up properly facing forward.
I think the current arrangemts and procedures for the starts at Cheltenham are a vast improvement on previous years.
The starts in this country have been a shambles for years and not just at Cheltenham. The standard of starter, some of them ex jocks is poor.
In the Kim Muir today you could tell he had no intention of sending them off first time, did you see how he was stood on the rostrum? An example was going to be made of the amateurs. 2 false starts followed and on both occasions they lined up as well as you would want.
It just seems as though this sort of regular occurrence at the start is perfectly acceptable to the authorities as nothing is ever done about it.<br>Another disaster like the void National awaits if this carries on, they were lucky to get away with last years after Haynes’s desperate lunge for the switch failed.
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