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A depressing read Cork.
I think Kevin Blake makes a number of points that seem blindingly obvious to many on here, yet don’t seem to resonate with those actually directing the sport.
In my opinion regarding the festival, making it four days was an error and considering extending it to five was lunacy. Regarding NH racing overall, it is in decline and I don’t think there’s a lot of faith in the authorities to stabilize, let alone change it.
Mind you, this bright idea of affordability checks will do its best to kill off racing anyway.
“After many years of excess, poor advice and bad decisions, might the Cheltenham Festival and indeed National Hunt racing as a whole be on the verge of reaching their Kevin McBride moment?
The fear that this might be approaching has been there for a number of years now.
The gross inflation of the Graded race programme, deep polarization in the training ranks and conservative campaigning of the best horses has led to the top level of the National Hunt racing product becoming a shadow of its former self.”“and ever-growing apathy amongst the sport’s most passionate followers surely cannot be ignored any longer?”
I think I actually fall into this group.
By now I am normally in full ‘Cheltenham’ mode, but this year I’m very apathetic about it and at present couldn’t care less………..AND it starts next week!!
I will be watching on all four days but will give a few races a miss.
The opening day has undoubtedly been dealt a huge blow by the enforced absence of Constitution Hill. I hope something steps up to make a race of it with State Man or Lossiemouth. Two odds on processions for the same trainer in the space of 40 minutes will not be good for the sport.
I do think what happens at the Cheltenham Festival this year needs to be viewed in the context of the post-Covid cost-of living crisis.
The economic cycle is precisely that, boom times will come again and, on the back of that, a fifth day at this meeting on the Saturday – it might even shift Wednesday-Sunday eventually – is my prediction.
Unlike many both in the media and on social media, I make the best of what is.
6/1 and 2/1 NRNB ante-post respectively, the prospect of successive State Man/Lossiemouth processions doesn’t exactly appall me.
And while it’s further evidence of one-sided dominance, the duo will be in every “lad acca” in the land – that’s your modern younger punter typically nowadays it seems to me.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Out of the 28 races 16 of those have the favourite trained by Willie Mullins only 2 are from this side of the Irish Sea. To me that is a shocking statistic.
The more I know the less I understand.
NH racing isn’t big enough to support 5 days, it’s struggling with 4 days currently. Just because Royal Ascot can make 5 days work, there is no reason to think Cheltenham can. It might have passed some people by, but NH is a small world – basically GB & Ireland. Flat racing is far bigger, and properly international……
In truth, it’s not just Cheltenham that needs sorting, the whole season could do with a rethink; fewer graded races, and more encouragement for top horses in handicaps…..
Currently for the day one Grade 1 races there are 55 standing their ground, 67% of those are Irish (62% of those Irish entries are Willie Mullins with 42% of the 55 being Mullins).
The more I know the less I understand.
I am of course going to watch every race but some (ok quite a lot) will not be races that I would be rightly annoyed if I missed seeing them live…..but I could argue that case with all the big festival meetings (flat and jumps).
Also I do find it……..(I am not really sure what the correct word is to describe it) that there is such a big point made about the Irish having the vast majority of the favourites when in times past it would have clearly been the opposite way around and for many more years vastly in favour of the English runners.
Optically, the Mullins battalions (numbers that can rival or exceed the number of horses other yards have in total) that ‘invade’ Gloucestershire in the second week of March every year is not a good look for racing but these things do strangely enough go in cycles.
Since the Pretsbury Cup became a thing in 2014 results have been split as follows:
2014: 15-12 to UK
2015: 14-13 to UK
2016: 15-13 to IRE
2017: 19-09 to IRE
2018: 17-11 to IRE
2019: 14-14
2020: 17-10 to IRE
2021: 23-05 to IRE
2022: 18-10 to IRE
2023: 18-10 to IREOutside of 2017 and 2021 you could argue the UK has been punching a little above its weight results wise considering how many of the top horses were/are stabled in Ireland. But it wasn’t always like that.
Ireland during the 80s/90s had very few winners and in 1989 they had no winners at all and that followed on from having just 1 winner in both 1987 and 1988 – 1997 saw a Irish record of 7 winners and that total wasn’t bettered until 2005 with 9 winners (which also happened to include the big 3 races – Champion Hudle, QMCC and Gold Cup). The record was beaten the very next year with 10 but that dropped to just 5 in 2007.
From 1998 to 2012 the Irish had only trained 1 winner of the Triumph Hurdle but since 2013 fortunes have turned and they have won 7 of 10 runnings – Mullins had 5 winners in 2014 and 6 in 2015 and in 2018 he had 7, which also coincided with Elliott having 8 meaning between them they accounted for 15 of Ireland’s 17 winners.
Yes the Irish have things very much in their favour currently (although some yearly results don’t paint it as quite as bleak a picture as suggested) but I doubt very much that people were complaining that the English were winning too many races when many of the top Irish bred horses were going to English owners/trainers and mopping up at the Festival for many more years than the current Irish dominance.
Yes many things have to change…..mainly the culling of the bloated fixture list (including graded races) which I don’t see the Powers having much impact on as they have very little (to no) teeth to implement changes.
Ireland have much less racing (not even meetings every day) and by and large have double digit fields sizes for most races below the top level but even those races end up with the top horse taking each other on regardless of whether they are stable companions.
Its by no means a perfect system there either but it is a fair way better than what we have here and lessons can (and should) be learned and most importantly implemented before it is too late.
I largely agree with griff11’s post above and while Kevin Blake was stating the bleedin’ obvious to most of us, it is well worth putting it out there again.
Although him expecting/hoping the powers that be to do anything about it is pure pie in the sky, particularly for Cheltenham to be better than ever.Just like the Grand National the authorities have more or less ruined Cheltenham.
How many years have we all known there is far too much racing and there needs to be a drastic reduction in fixtures but they continue to do very little.Bookmakers don’t take a bet from anyone who might win and couple this with affordability checks and a totally inept BHA no wonder people are losing interest.
If Cheltenham wasn’t on ITV doubt I would bother, I certainly wouldn’t be subscribing to a channel to watch it.Mullins does often pitch in his top horses against each other, but not always; Vautour was deprived of a Gold Cup win, Annie Power of a Champion Hurdle (maybe more than one), tho the bloated nature of the festival may have contributed to that. I find the Irish/British element tiresome; when I used to attend the (3-day) festival in the 1980s, Irish-trained winners were a rarity, but the festival was still memorable; a good horse is to be celebrated, wherever they are bred or trained
Yeats, I think you were being slightly disingenuous to Kevin Blake. We need people like him (and more), to put these concerns down in print otherwise it’s guaranteed nothing will change. Hope might be pie in the sky but at least it’s something we can cling onto.
Befair – Vautour wouldn’t have got home in a Gold Cup (3m was his upper limit and he was outstayed when Cue Card beat him in the King George, so the Ryanair was the perfect race distance for him).
Annie Power wouldn’t have beaten Faugheen in 2015 and she only won it the following year because Faugheen missed the race through injury and she deputised for him. Also, had she actually consented to settle properly in the early stages of the 2014 Stayers Hurdle, she would have won.
Totally agree with you re celebrating a good horse regardless of what side of the Irish Sea its trained on though.
LD73, respectfully disagree; Vautour was so much better going R-handed, I believe that the Gold Cup would have suited him. I accept that Annie might not have beaten Faugheen, but it would have been close; and the year she ran in the Stayers Hurdle she would definitely have beaten Jezki in the Champion Hurdle, but Willie was trying to protect the Fly, who was past his best by then.
I don’t buy into the Irish/UK thing to be honest ……. I don’t care where the horses are trained
They’ve all got 4 legs and a jockey ……. it’s a fair playing field.
Why would it bother me if they’re trained 200 miles from my house or 500 miles from my house …… they’re just names on a race card with associated form.
If the Irish happen to have the best horses then we want them taking part in the big races whether here or in Ireland
It’s all a marketing ploy to whip up more betting and enthusiasm
Totally Slowly Away. I always remember some chap at Fairyhouse speaking excitedly to camera after Desert Orchid won the Irish Grand National saying “tell people in England that the Irish love to see a great horse and we don’t care where he’s from”.
I don’t have a problem with the Irish coming over but it is highlighting a serious weakness with our troops.
The more I know the less I understand.
I don’t have a problem per se where all the horses are trained, whether it be here, Ireland or wherever, think the Prestbury Cup is pointless. Going by the original topic and nothing whatsoever against Willie Mullins but i always think back to 2015. All things being equal and the following being trained elsewhere, we could have had a Champion Hurdle containing Faugheen, Annie Power, Vautour, Un De Secaux, Hurrican Fly and Champagne Fever!
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