Cheltenham – Your one change and one change only

[Nathan Hughes]

Plenty of purists saying its a sign of the lack of quality
plenty of punters bemoaning the games too hard
I doubt they had social media and many big racing forums when Norton’s Coin won the Gold Cup.
I remember when people were saying Mullins and Ireland were finished now they dominate
Everything gets bemoaned… small fields… too many pacemakers, take the pacemakers out and we hear the lack of each way opportunity’s etc .. Trainers not running their horses against each other… trainer has the whole field.. it never ends ..

Gaelic Warrior Gold Cup Winner 2026

[LD73]

For me the monopoly of top horses in the top yards has always been a thing if you go back through history, the only main difference now is that said top horses are now much more concentrated into fewer yards than they were in the past.

We had the likes of Walwyn/Price/Rimell/Winter/Easterby/Dickinson winning the big races and thus dominating the trainers title from the mid 40’s all the way through to the early 80’s, Henderson/Pipe (who did it through sheer numbers rather than an abundance of quality horses)/Nicholls have dominated similarly since then.

Yes Mullins has turned farming G1 horses into an art form (through sheer hard work and setting up great networking of the raw material) but even he hasn’t been able to match Dickinson’s first 5 home in the Gold Cup, which was simply called an incredible training feat rather than people bemoaning him having a monopoly of the top staying chasers all in his yard. Note along with winning that Gold Cup, he also won that year’s Charlie Hall Chase, Peter Marsh Chase, Hennessy Gold Cup, King George and Queen Mother Champion Chase.

I am not saying that it isn’t more of a problem now (although the new brigade of good trainers in England may mean a better spread of top horses in the long term that might make it harder for someone like Mullins to continue producing his seemingly conveyor belt of stars) but it also isn’t a new problem that has cropped up in recent years either.

I think the one thing most of the TRF group can agree on is that there has been a dilution of the quality of the Festival due to it going from 3 to 4 days, Cheltenham is almost now a Festival where it could be argued that ‘we have a seperate G1/top race race for pretty much eveyone type of horse now’ which gives connections too many options in swerving the blockbuster clashes that fans of the sport want to see.

[Gladiateur]

Nathan, there’s an old saying: you can’t please all of the people, all of the time.

Someone will moan no matter what happens.

[Nathan Hughes]

Yes, I was thinking the same
perhaps I’m picking up on too much on the negatives

Gaelic Warrior Gold Cup Winner 2026

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