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There was a piece in The Guardian by Chris Cook last night concerning the National Hunt Chase, which exactly mirrored my thoughts on this oddity.
I enjoy marathon chases for mature horses – there’s one at Hexham tomorrow that is always a good contest – but it’s as if racing has thrown together a combination of factors to create the race most likely to cause discomfort: a four-mile race over Cheltenham’s fences in testing gound with amateurs riding novices! Most of the runners were attempting a trip way in excess of anything they’d ran over before: often a mile-and-a-half further.
Fairly predictably, it resulted in four finishers from 18 runners (albeit two virtually tailed off) with an absolute slog up the hill between Le Breuil and Discorama which was either heroically brave or rather distressing, depending on one’s point of view. Mine veered towards the latter. Added to this was the sight of screens up around the track, from which three horses thankfully emerged but one – the Mullins’s Ballyward – didn’t.
With media outlets enthusiastically reporting every fatality at the big meetings nowadays, one wonders exactly what this race really adds to the calendar, other than being a relic of an age where it was considered the “ultimate test” before The Gold Cup arrived in the 1930s. At the very least, race planners should look to drop the distance to three miles, as in it’s current format it really does look like an accident waiting to happen.
Mike
Perfectly put, Mike/Chris Cook. If making a race most likely to produce carnage there is nothing you could do more.
Get rid of it.
Value Is EverythingVery difficult to watch that yesterday – lots of ammo for the antis … I was very upset at the loss of Ballyward – only his 3rd chase … asking alot of novices …
This is covered in the Cheltenham 2019 section.
For a start, the Grand National is and has always been the ultimate test.
The NH chase also has historical importance in its current form.
You two guys are utterly wrong. Getting rid or severely reducing the distance of the race would be a step of pandering appeasement too far. The line must be drawn now.
Effectively the logical conclusion to your reasoning would eventually see all racing banished.
If you do not wish to watch races like this that is your choice but, as fans of some forms of horse racing, by heavily criticising yesterday’s contest you are shooting yourselves in the foot.
Why would we want another 3mile novice chase. We have the RSA.
I would see no problem if the 4 mile race was confined to horses who are in their season directly after being a novice rather than novice season. And I would have 2 further conditions on the race
1. That runners must previously have had at least 5 runs over fences
2. That at least 2 of those 5 runs were over a distance of more than 3 miles.I have nothing against races run over an extended distance, as stated I positively enjoy them. Tomorrow’s Hexham marathon has attracted a very decent 12 runners, but take a glance at the experience of those entries and the types of distances they’ve been running at. It’s wildly different.
I just feel it’s absurd to run amateur-ridden novices over four miles at a tough, tough course like Cheltenham. What purpose does it serve?
I don’t remember this as being a novices’ race in the distant past? Was it always?
Mike
No need to get rid of the race but they do need to amend a few things with it.
Conditions similar to what Wex has said would help, as would decreasing the weight carried.
They carry 2 pounds more than the RSA runners, doesn’t make sense to me.Come off it, GM; there are massive differences between the NH Chase and Grand National.
As I said in the Cheltenham section:
A big race on a big day with a big field, over 4 miles, with some going up a mile and a half in trip, with AMATEUR ridden novices. BHA could not invent a race more likely to produce carnage.
Yes, there are other professionally ridden races that may (“MAY”) produce a similar result if jockeys get the pace wrong… But the point is the likelihood of it happening in this race is significantly higher. Horses going up a mile and a half in trip are less likely to stay. Amateurs are more likely to get carried away with the occasion. Amateurs are not so good at judging pace and 4 miles is more difficult to judge. Amateurs are more likely to misjudge what a horse has left. Big field means more interference – less room – and amateurs are more likely to cause interference. Amateurs are worse at putting a horse in the right position over a fence and these are inexperienced chasers more likely to make mistakes.
They’re asking for trouble.
Value Is EverythingI don’t remember this as being a novices’ race in the distant past? Was it always?
This book would explain but I’m not buying at the current prices!
https://www.amazon.co.uk/History-National-Hunt-Chase-1860-2010/dp/0956725007
I can’t remember it not being a novice chase and I can’t find any freely available info on its history – but it can’t have always been a Novice chase if it used to be the second most important race in the calendar after the national.
Until about the 1950’s it was run on its own racecourse, with only the finish being on the racecourse proper. It used to cross the road and cover ground where the car parks are now.
It does seem to be an anomaly but once this race is banned or gelded, what will be next?
Edit: according to a poster on betfair, “It started as the principal race of the meeting and was open to horses that had not won any race (flat, hurdle) or any Chase other than a Point to Point before the current season. It was and still is restricted to amateur riders. About 20 years ago the conditions changed to allow flat and hurdle winners to compete so long as they qualified as novice chasers.”
So perhaps it has always been a novice chase.
Spot on AP!!
With their decision yesterday the BHA created negative headlines which wouldn’t have been there afterwards. I don’t recall anyone saying immediately after the race that the third and fourth horses shouldn’t have continued.
This race isn’t run in soft ground every year and it is a unique race in the calendar which should be applauded. In fact since the loss of the four miler on New year’s day it’s one of only two races over this distance at the home of NH racing. What do we want, yet another 2m 5f handicap?
Amateurs already have their Gold Cup in the Foxhunters and they’ve also got the 3m amateurs handicap for established chasers.
Novices already have three races to choose from and one of them (RSA) is the one for top stayers (stayers stay further the older they get, 4m is too far for novices when conditions are testing and/or pace too strong).
If wanting a 3m6f+ chase, make it a handicap for professionals and established horses, maybe even a veterans chase.Value Is EverythingThe usual knee jerk reaction, based on one running, to one of the most historic races on the NH calendar which has been in existence since 1860.
The uncharacteristic soft/heavy ground of this season undoubtedly contributed to the small number of finishers.
I would argue that we actually need more of these long distance races to help condition horses to running over this trip. We shouldn’t be denying opportunities to horses who have the requisite stamina to be competitive in such events.
We are in danger of continuing the downward spiral of standardising racing into repetitive non descript contests, with races over longer distances eliminated, meetings on testing going prohibited and perceived “tricky” obstacles altered or moved. One of the attractions of horse racing in this country is it’s diversity and unpredictability. Further dilution and sanitisation should be resisted for the long term health of the sport.
....and you've got to look a long way back for anything else.
One of the best posts I have seen on this forum ESP.
The more popular jump racing becomes the more it comes under threat from the very people who should be protecting it. With the complete over saturation of AW racing with the effect that has had on the number of flat horses switching to the jumps along with the NH races being run with half the jumps taken out it’s time for us jumps fanatics to say “enough is enough”.
Hear hear, ESP and Patriot. And Nicky Henderson:
It seems TRFers are not listening – again – and making up stuff about people not wanting staying races.
Value Is EverythingBetlarge wrote:
I don’t remember this as being a novices’ race in the distant past? Was it always?
The stipulation ‘Amateur Riders Novices Chase’ first appeared in the official race title in 2002; prior to that it was just ‘Amateur Riders’, though it was certainly open to novices – if possibly not restricted to them – long before that. For example, that smart chaser Topsham Bay won in 1990 when a novice
Like the Grand National, it’s one of those aberrant ‘traditional’ races that adds a thread of an unusual hue to the steeplechasing tapestry but isn’t an ideal advert for it
This year’s race reminded me somewhat of the Earth Summit-Suny Bay match in the 1998 National, though not as pretty
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