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Kevin Blake suggested this week in his ATR blog that if it is going to be a 5 day festival, they should stage the traditional big Cheltenham races on the first three days and then have all the dross on Friday and Saturday. Not such a bad idea if a fifth day comes to pass.
Churned up ground, crap races and people just there for a day out on the Saturday… it’ll be a bookies’ benefit.
Therefore, it is guaranteed to happen.
Seems like the whole season has been small UK fields as people were obsessed with Cheltenham or whinging about prize money, now we’ve got small Cheltenham fields due to Irish dominance / too many races.
So what is being discussed to reverse this nonsense? A 5th day at Cheltenham of course! UK NH racing is an absolute shambles.
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Small fields merely reflects the season as a whole…….
You can’t win prize money stuck in the stable….
Yet, we’ll still get people this week spinning it as fabulous.
To go back to the original question. After the Champion Hurdle is over and Honeysuckle bolts up in receipt of 7lbs, we have to look forward to:
A Mares Hurdle that is dross this year. One of the worst races of this festival or any other.
A consolation Triumph Hurdle.
A marathon chase for amateur riders with 7 runners. 5 trained in Ireland and 2 trained by Rebecca Curtis.
I am fully prepared to have the moaning and negative accusations thrown my way – but let us just say that none of those races are sending my pulse into overdrive.
CAS, absolutely agree. For what was once the biggest race at the Festival (I admit it was back in the day) to only have seven runners, five of which are from Ireland, is not good enough. Takes me back to the old Cathcart days!
Not a good look, is it? Only one stable in Britain can muster any runners in such a historic race – and one of those is 125/1!
Exactly Cork. We already know that the Triumph isn’t going to have many runners, how many more will there be?
The Boodles looks a bit one-sided for a handicap.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"You’re right about Tuesday, Cork and Thursday looks exactly the same. A handicap as race 5 on the card, followed by a very meaningless novices’ hurdle for mares and another amateur handicap to finish the day. You already have six races with lesser significance than the feature races, yet (some) people want a fifth day.
you’re right Tatling, out of the sixteen declarations eight are engaged on either Tuesday or Wednesday!
There’s no footage of Voltigeur v The Flying Dutchman, so this will have to do:
Two horses can make a cracking event.
And they’ll both get beaten… by Jungle Boogie. 😉
Listening to the good sense on here, I’m reminded of the old adage “less is more”. Five days is indefensible on any grounds of quality so it comes down to commercial greed. Perhaps the plan is to move the Midlands National to Cheltenham and run it as the fifth day highlight.
It depends what you want – if you want a Royal Ascot-type scenario where every race has some quality (yes, they have the Queen Alexandra, I know) then some of what’s in the four day programme needs to be refined or ditched.
If you want a Punchestown-type scenario of good races in conjunction with shall we say “lesser” events, also fine. There used, I believe, to be a Seller many moons ago – maybe bring back a high-grade selling chase or hurdle on your new fifth day.
The current problem is the plethora of races fishing for the same horses in the same pond. Your top novice hurdler or chaser can run at 2 miles, 2 miles 5 furlongs or 3 miles – they all have Grade 1 races. The emergence of the intermediate distance championship races mirrors the rise of the 7-furlong race on the flat. The 7 furlong horse is now thought of as a specialist in his/her own right rather than an unfortunate stuck between six furlongs and a mile.
We also have the rise of the “other” festivals – Aintree was once the Grand National plus a few other races – now, it’s a mini-championship meeting in its own right. Prestbury is no longer the only place that matters just as the top 3-y-o colt miler can swerve the Guineas and still win the St James’s Palace. For the British, there’ likely to be less Irish competition at Aintree given the proximity of Fairyhouse and we now have Punchestown in late April as well.
Sport v Greed – we know what wins.
But I agree with everything Stodge168 says. We don’t need 3 Gd 1 races for Nov Chasers/Hurdlers nor 3 Gd1 for Open class Chasers. Aintree already had some of those races……no need to duplicate, but Cheltenham are greedy bar stewards who want the lot.
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