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GC, that’s a fine piece of research – thanks for taking the time to do it.
No worries, happy to oblige! I’ve been keeping a running total of both TRCs and fatalities** over the cross-country course for a good few years now, in both cases initially prompted by pronouncements about such races made on either this forum or
Neigh
.
gc
**The answer is two (0.4% of all runners in such races at Cheltenham ever) – Leagaune was killed at the bank in the first ever race on 12/11/95, whilst Buailtes And Fadas suffered a heart attack after finishing third on 10/11/06.
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
You call that a cross-country race?
Here’s the Steeplethon. A veryunique
course! Run twice a year.
mms://66.209.93.118/nsa/2011/20110507_0 … Cup_02.wmv
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cs-5RV1ECo0/T … C_6028.jpgThe best remedy if it is to continue would be to just to stage one and add it to the hunter chase card as it probably appeals to the same audience.
I’ve been hankering after a an Open hunter chase around the cross-country course at Cheltenham’s May meeting for quite some time now, though with that card extended to seven races from last season onwards it’s less likely to be accommodated than it might have been previously.
That’s actually a shame. The programming in November and December of the first two races around this course each year automatically excludes any hunter chasers from taking part in it; and whilst any could notionally participate in the equivalent event at the Festival, it’s hard to imagine many would be highly enough rated to get into the handicap proper if a Garde Champetre or similar heads the weights.
The May meet would suit those sort of horses, and I’d want a cross-country race there as well as rather than instead of any or all of the pre-existing trio. I can’t see the business logic of investing as much resource into setting up and maintaining that facility, only to get less use out of it than is presently the case.
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
It was right that Jacqui Coward take a large slice of the blame but of the others I do not understand why Heskin was singled out for punishment.
A New Story was going really well and I guess Heskin has been done for barrelling, but in my view you either do Coward only or do them all.
If you watch the replay Heskin was clearly turning onto the correct course and then changed his mind and altered course to follow the others. Both he and Coward rightly, imo, got bans. There also might be a case for others as well.
I do agree that a tape could have been held aross but the responsibilty does lay with the jockeys to go the correct way. Interesting that at least two of the riders who went the right way had walked the course earlier.
Taking the wrong course is a regular occurrence in these cross country races.
Including today’s renewal, the course has been used
35 times
since the first Sporting Index Chase back in November 1995.
On 27 occasions there has been nothing which could be under any circumstances construed as a run-out, taking of the wrong course, or similar.
…
This leaves five out of the 35 runnings to date in which something more closely approximating a "taken wrong course" occurred. Even then, I’d hestitate to count the incident regarding McGregor The Third (13/11/98), as he ran extremely wide rather than off the course per se – there was no need to retrace steps.
That leaves just four races which I’d be more inclined to accept as TRCs:
13/12/02
Lucky Clover (5th), Trinitro (fell) and Magic Dancer (PU) TRC; should have retraced but didn’t, so all were subsequently disqualified,12/11/04
Registana TRC, but not retrace to rejoin race and was classed as Ran Out,16/11/07
Puntal (3rd), Florida Dream (5th) and Happy Hussar (8th) TRC but re-traced,09/12/11
7x TRC, 4 retraced; Scotsirish (4th), De Danu (5th), Double Dizzy (6th) and Uncle Junior (7th); those classed as RO were Wedger Pardy, A New Story and Balthazar King.You’ll all have your own views on whether four genuine TRCS out of 35 races (11.43%) is liveable with.
Note, however, that the 14 runners involved in those TRCs represent just 3% of the 455 ever to have graced the course
, so any notion that riders have always picked up TRC-related suspensions with gay abandon in this contest isn’t especially well founded.
gc
Has this EXACT course been used "35" times Jeremy?
One of the problems with this course is the home straight is sometimes on the New Course and sometimes on the Old. Doesn’t that mean sometimes the path taken today would’ve been the correct one? Of course it is no "excuse" for jockeys not to know the course, but surely Cheltenham Racecourse can help them out by pointing the way? Either with cones or ribbon.
I don’t understand, why is "3%" of runners being TRC’s acceptable? Sounds a large figure to me.
At the Cheltenham Festival, there are usually between 100 and 120 runners per day. What would the reaction be if on average between 3 and 4 runners per day took the wrong course?
Value Is EverythingAt the Cheltenham Festival, there are usually between 100 and 120 runners per day. What would the reaction be if on average between 3 and 4 runners per day took the wrong course?
Get better riders?
If eventers and showjumpers can manage to stay on course so can NH jockeys. Get some French or American riders for the day if you have to.
Reason I am against these races is not because I don’t bet in them. There are many types of race I don’t bet in.
I also have no objection to "old plodders".
Reasons are:
The fact Cheltenham Racecourse seems incapable of marking out the course in such a way to be clear for jockeys.
Not competitive enough and not of sufficiently high standard for major festivals. Certainly not the main one in March.
The fences are so different to park obstacles, not many horses take to them. Far fewer than take to the National and as a consequence the races are far less competitive than Aintree.Some (or at least one) fence is solid timber.
It is run on much firmer ground which I believe is never watered.
If the course is maintained, then it should only be kept for Hunter chases. Hunters would be more likely to take to them. Enjoyment of these races seems primarily in the Point To Point field anyway..
Value Is EverythingHas this EXACT course been used "35" times Jeremy?
It hasn’t, Mark, and I think I admitted as much earlier. Some races in the cross-country course’s infancy were run over 3m1f, others over the more enduring 3m7f distance but a different layout.
Standardisation of test came over time, and what endures now has basically endured for nigh on a decade; but to me the layout is irrelevant. The responsibility always starts and finishes with the rider to perform whatever familiarisation befits the occasion.
One of the problems with this course is the home straight is sometimes on the New Course and sometimes on the Old. Doesn’t that mean sometimes the path taken today would’ve been the correct one? Of course it is no "excuse" for jockeys not to know the course, but surely Cheltenham Racecourse can help them out by pointing the way? Either with cones or ribbon.
See above. If it’s an absolute given that a cross-country race at the Open meeting will finish on the Old Course, and the equivalent races in December and March on the New, then that’s ostensibly one less thing for riders to worry about, but it still behoves them to check this beforehand. Cones or a ribbon to help signify the entry onto the straight would be a useful addition, though, however much it might seem like a sop to some.
I don’t understand, why is "3%" of runners being TRC’s acceptable?
I never said that it was acceptable – I was exploring how accurate it was to suggest that riders have always picked up sizeable quantities of TRC-related suspensions in cross-country races.
3% is obviously plenty more than the going rate for conventional races – there’s zero merit in trying to argue otherwise. The questions then become ones of whether 3% is;
– too high for comfort,
– higher than you’d expect,
– lower than you’d expect,
– an indictment of the fecklessness of a portion of the human participants,
– something better marking of certain sections of the course could fix,
– or perhaps an indication that you can no more confer "normal course" values upon the cross-country course’s TRC rate than you can on Grand National course’s completion (or even fatality) rate.What would the reaction be if on average between 3 and 4 runners per day took the wrong course?
(((tries to think of wisecrack involving Danny Cook: fails))).
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
Oooh, lots to respond to here, some of it you’ll have heard one or two or twelvety times from me before, Mark! At the risk of boring the botty off of everyone once more, shall we dance?
The fact Cheltenham Racecourse seems incapable of marking out the course in such a way to be clear for jockeys.
See previous posts. The course executive may be culpable, the jockeys may also. I have less sympathy for the latter than some on this thread, but opinions do of course differ.
Not competitive enough and not of sufficiently high standard for major festivals. Certainly not the main one in March.
I’d be inclined to think that’s more of an indictment of the lack of enterprise of trainers to re-route animals (particularly those jaded by park fences) to these sort of races, though, rather than an issue with the races themselves.
Still, seven of today’s 10 participants coveted ratings of 134 or higher, and three of those marks in the 150s. Note also that all seven renewals of the Festival cross-country race to date have attracted maximum fields of 16 (notwithstanding late non-runners), and the minimum rating required just to make the cut has continued to rise from 121 (2008, 2009) to 128 (2010) and finally to 134 (2011).
Just dwell on that last detail for a second there – a 16-runner handicap in which your horse has to be rated 134 just to get a race. That’s not a bad standard for any race.
The fences are so different to park obstacles, not many horses take to them.
But enough do to justify persevering with the format as far as I’m concerned, and those that do are no less likely to become lazered into the hearts and minds of Cheltenham – and by extension Festival – regulars than winners of more conventional races at the course (one thinks immediately of Spotthedifference in this regard).
For a venue which trades so heavily on the emotional pull of its equine participants’ achievements, that’s nothing to be taken lightly.
the races are far less competitive than Aintree.
This will come, this will come. Garde Champetre’s mantle has slipped, regardless of today’s triumph, and as he gracefully fades from view the way is clear for a numerically deeper pool of horses rated in the 140s and 150s to trade blows, and victories, around this course now.
Some (or at least one) fence is solid timber.
It is. It is also slanted enough to be jumped well whilst still giving the impression of looking fairly upright; it will yield if thwacked hard enough; and it has been the cause of no deaths and no known injuries throughout its career.
That’s not to make light of the potential risk of jumping timber rails at high speed. Popular chaser Big Matt was killed in one of the last renewals of the Marlborough Cup timber race at Barbury Racecourse during the 1990s, and I imagine Miss Woodford can give a good idea of the attrition rate in the US equivalents. I think Cheltenham’s rails have been made as safe as timber fences ever can be, though.
It is run on much firmer ground which I believe is never watered.
It’s more of a hostage to a dry spell than the remainder of the course, but if it’s threatening to become too fast then they simply abandon the race – note the substitution of a 4m handicap at the Open Meeting in the really dry autumn of 2003.
Enjoyment of these races seems primarily in the Point To Point field anyway.
A slight generalisation, but I basically know what you mean.
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
Some (or at least one) fence is solid timber.
It is. It is also slanted enough to be jumped well whilst still giving the impression of looking fairly upright; it will yield if thwacked hard enough; and it has been the cause of no deaths and no known injuries throughout its career.
That’s not to make light of the potential risk of jumping timber rails at high speed. Popular chaser Big Matt was killed in one of the last renewals of the Marlborough Cup timber race at Barbury Racecourse during the 1990s, and I imagine Miss Woodford can give a good idea of the attrition rate in the US equivalents. I think Cheltenham’s rails have been made as safe as timber fences ever can be, though.
gc
Well, timber is the best kind of jumps racing.
Of the 37 sanctioned timber races in the US this past season-there’s probably twice that number of timber point-to-point races:
255 entries in total
40 pulled up (jockey’s call after they tired badly and/or "lost touch with the field"-the horse is usually not injured)
16 lost rider (4 of these were in the Maryland Hunt Cup-again, no equine injuries)
18 fell (no fatal falls, all of these guys got right back up)
2 went off courseAnd in both the spring and fall runnings of that crazy Steeplethon I showed you, with different types of timber, hurdles, "real" steeplechase fences, a big log, a coop, a hedge, a bank, a water jump, a lake crossing, etc. every single horse and rider finished.
Not sure what the statistics for ordinary jumps races are, but I don’t think timber is that much more dangerous, provided the horse and jockey know how to jump them properly.
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Surely the lesson from all this is that it would hurt no one to have the course clearly defined, with signage for all deviations and cones or tape across areas that aren’t part of the course proper?
It’s horseracing, for God’s sake, a sport designed to identify the best in horse and rider, and not a trial in memory or map-reading.I don’t understand, why is "3%" of runners being TRC’s acceptable? Sounds a large figure to me.
At the Cheltenham Festival, there are usually between 100 and 120 runners per day. What would the reaction be if on average between 3 and 4 runners per day took the wrong course?
You have to put it in context Ginge.
With only 35 races any "exceptions" will appear to be high as a percentage.
You cannot compare the percentages on a like for like basis from a sample of 35 against a sample of several hundred.
Also by it’s very nature cross-country racing will be more prone to such errors, that is part of the skill from the riders perspective.
I assume the ratings previously given are correct. However, how many of these are actually on the downgrade? Many of them are only entered because that can’t justify their current mark elsewhere. I can remember looking at last year’s entries and hardly anything had been successful in their last six starts.
I was trying to think of an analogy to other sports and I would find it akin to turning up at Wimbledon and finding a Centre Court schedule of Petchey v Cowan sandwiched between Murray v Djokovic and Federer v Nadal. Yes, it might appeal to die-hard British fans but to a wider audience?
Whatever the pro’s and cons, I can only be very relieved that no horses
have been hurt; A New Story..the old boy did not deserve that to happen to him on a racecourse. I must admit to feeling slightly short changed that I only go to the Festival for one day and one of those races is a cross county one.
I don’t understand, why is "3%" of runners being TRC’s acceptable? Sounds a large figure to me.
At the Cheltenham Festival, there are usually between 100 and 120 runners per day. What would the reaction be if on average between 3 and 4 runners per day took the wrong course?
You have to put it in context Ginge.
With only 35 races any "exceptions" will appear to be high as a percentage.
You cannot compare the percentages on a like for like basis from a sample of 35 against a sample of several hundred.
Also by it’s very nature cross-country racing will be more prone to such errors, that is part of the skill from the riders perspective.
I agree Paul, the comparrison is not exactly in context, I’d expect X-Country to be a little worse and a smaller number of runners isn’t ideal. But the difference is so big to be meaningful in my opinion.
You would think Cheltenham would do something to make things clearer by next time it’s used. But I’ve thought the same on three other occasions over the years. Not excusing the jockeys, however, Cheltenham should be given a warning to get their act together. If they can’t get it right, get rid of it.
Value Is EverythingI couldn’t see the race live, but I’ve just caught a replay of it on YouTube. As someone involved in cross country races within the Crystal Cup series (I was asked to advise on suitable courses in Germany), I do love these types of races. However, as cross country courses across Europe go, Cheltenham is actually one of the easiest to navigate. So why did yesterdays incident happen? Well, whilst noticing that Miss Coward may not have looked up approaching the bend (she did seem to have her head down), there are a couple of things that they do in Germany that MIGHT help stop a recurrence of this happening:
WALK THE COURSE
I honestly don’t know if the riders are asked the walk the Cheltenham cross country course before racing, but in 2009, I was in Baden-Baden for a chase which was part of the Fegentri World Amateur Riders series. My job was to take the English speaking jockeys round the course and show them where to go. Baden-Baden is a difficult, twisty course, and we spent a good half an hour going over the course, and I also gave each of the jockeys a map just to familiarise themselves further with the course, Only 2 weeks ago, I was in Krefeld with an English amateur jockey, and again, we walked the course (along with a member of the racecourse committee) so we knew exactly where we were going. Ironically, I actually saw Peter Gehm in Krefeld whilst I was there – in his case when Registana went the wrong way at Cheltenham in 2004, he walked the wrong course at the end, but I do believe walking such a complicated course can be really beneficial.GET THE TAPE!
Mannheim is another course where I walk the course with any visiting jockeys. However, they have an additional trick to help any riders who may be confused with the layout of the course – and surprisingly for Germany, it’s a very low-tech solution!! All around the course, marshals are paired up with a long piece of tape, so that the jockeys are completely clear as to which part of the course they need to navigate. Like Baden-Baden, Mannheim is a difficult, twisty course to navigate, however, as the chase course is in the middle of a flat course only 6 furlongs round, you can imagine just how tight it is. To demonstrate this in action, here’s a video of a chase in Mannheim from October:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSI53iIK7nE
1:20, 2:55, 3:42 and 3:55 into the video, you can see the tape in action, but you can also see the marshals with the tape pretty much throught the race. OK, it does look a bit of a homemade solution to the problem, but I can tell you that this works. I’ve never seen a jockey get lost or take the wrong course at Mannheim. All you need is a marshal who knows when they’ve got to put their tape up, and you’ve got the solution!! The nearest thing I can thing to this would be a police cordon, and I think on the whole, they seem to work.
As for previous postings mentioning the fact that the Cheltenham race may have been low on quality, yesterdays race actually offered the lowest prize money of all the Crystal Cup races this year. With six figure sums on offer for races in the Czech Republic, France and Belgium (yes, Belgium!!), on a personal point, I think it’s a real shame to see such a poor purse for Englands cross country showpiece.
It would be a shame to lose these cross country races. They are a bit of a novelty and they televise well, with the close-up camera shots.
The course specialists who take part, such as the six-times winner over the course, Garde Champetre, and the exploits of Enda Bolger and Nina Carberry over the years, make it extra interesting. Admittedly, many of the purists don’t like these races.
Could do without the innovation of having Channel 4’s Alice Plunkett twice chipping in with some inane comments and chuckling, while standing by one of the fences, during the running of the race.
Bad enough having Francome with his in-running comments during other races. When will the TV producers realise that we don’t need these interjections during races? They add nothing. We can all see how such-and-such a horse is running and we know that the race is hotting up.
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