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It would be a convenient and definitely flawed metaphor to lump all the visiting horses under one trainer, but I shall do so on this occasion.
The dominance of Paul Nicholls, Nicky Henderson and "the Irish Challenge" is making life difficult for the other stables and as member Grey Dolphin mentions in the Cheltenham section, I think the festival is suffering for it.
It’s become just like the British Premier League. All four of the showpiece cups won by Nicholls and Henderson and the "second string" teams (American Trilogy, Andytown), hogging the limelight at big prices in the minor events. Didn’t some bookmaker complain about the predictabilty of flat racing at a prestigious Cheltenham preamble? I wonder whether he’s changed his opinion after the last four days.
Why just mention the Wylie and Johnson partnership? What about the extremely disappointing Pipe challenge. Malcolm Jefferson (who had two fancied horses go down like the Scharnhorst). Another poor festival for Henry Daly and Phillip Hobbs. Nicky Richards. Len Lungo. Even Alan King had to wait until the last for his crumbs from the table.
The smaller stables missed out with their stable stars. Carruthers and Starluck – two heavily backed horses the whole country were looking forward to seeing – didn’t run that well in the face of the Seven Barrows and Ditcheat onslaught.
Only NTD and Venetia Williams cocked a snook, though with the latter, one would argue, and entirely in keeping with the yard, not with the right horses. I thought Lavelle might break through this year, but she keeps hitting the crossbar. Not surprising really, with the resources available to the opposition.
So just mentioning O Neill or Wylie/Johnson doesn’t paint the whole picture. There’s been a slowly developing culture change in NH for the last five years and it hit bigtime last week.
To put some figures on it…..
272 trainers have ran horses in every Class 1 chase and hurdles race in the UK since Jan 1st 2008.
Just 4 trainers, Nicholls, Pipe, Henderson, King, (1.47% of that total) have taken 51% of the total win prizemoney available in those races between them.
I don’t know if that’s healthy for the long-term viability of a lot of trainers, it certainly doesn’t seem to be effecting the popularity of National Hunt racing with the public, but given the figures above I think its just as well that JP stays away from Ditcheat.
Interesting stats indeed, Cav.
There’s definitely no point moaning. I was at Southwell for the three days and everyone spent their time backing the obvious and had a whale of a time. There was even the sight of six gentlemen of advanced years in caps and polyveldt shoes lustily singing the Ruby Ruby Ruby song, a sight which I thought I’d never see at the sandpit.
All this domination really can’t be a problem. It’s probably all in my head.
But wait. Long term, monopoly is never good for sport. It isn’t good for anything. Neither is the obvious result. Wait for the collapse in interest in football next year if Man Utd win five tournaments. What’s the point turning up? Why not do something else with your life? Especially at fifty notes a ticket or, if you’re a club chairman, a hundred million a club.
Or a prominent horse owner. Why not try the flat and put a couple of well bred fillies with Pam Sly?
This domination in NH racing is very interesting. Is there a geographical bias?
It seems than any English stable north of Herefordshire can hope for no more than the occasional shock win.The North is really struggling for jumps winners this year, Sean, particularly when the yards travel south.
The current situation reminds me of the complete and utter domination the south had over the north in the seventies and eighties on the flat. Braveheart and others (Ryan, Easterby, Semple) changed all that.
I’ve mentioned Malcolm Jefferson earlier. Cape Tribulation was considered the Cock of the North by all us Pictish types (and our whippets) and he was beaten out of sight. I admired Jefferson’s taciturn acceptance of the situation but he must have been really worried.
Robnorth usually knows about these things better than I.
We are knee deep in canine vermin (terriers) up here in gods own country at the moment.
The wileys were a major disapointment, red maloney ran the best race for them all cheltnum.
Rose Dobbin rode a good race too be placed in one of the handicaps, shr seems too have learned too ride at last, she crept though the field and kept the winner honest.
Ferdy Murphy and the normandy migit mafia ( Guy Petit, his son in law) went close but no cigar.
All in all it was a shocking meeting for the northern stables.
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