- This topic has 122 replies, 29 voices, and was last updated 6 years, 9 months ago by
.
- Posts
A subject close enough to my heart to persuade me to post. I owned a runner in a the 1991 running of this race and I still have the racecard. The conditions of the race were:
“For five-year-olds and upwards which, at the start of the current season, have not won a race under any recognised Rules of Flat Racing, Steeple Chasing or Hurdle Racing.”
There were 18 runners, none of which were trained in Ireland. The first prze was £15,530, compared to £50,032 for the Sun Alliance Chase run on the same day.
The amateur riders included several names still familiar today, e.g Robert Alner, Ian McKie, John Durkan, Seamus Mullins, Marcus Armytage and Tony Martin.
The last named rode the winner, Smooth Escort, for trainer Di Haine. He’d finshed second in his three previous starts over fences, minor 3M novice chases at Leicester, Nottingham and Worcester. His win earned him a handicap rating of 118 for thr start of the next season.
My own runner, called Liams Pride, had won a 2M novice handicap chase at Leicester off a mark of 93 on his previous start. He came home a well beaten 9th in a race in whch only one fell (the mount of M Armytage!) and one unseated.
The point of all this irrelevant history – this was a race specifically designed for, and contested by, slow, moderate horses. The winner spent most of his subsequent career running at the country tracks – his only other run at Cheltenham was in the long since abandoned 4M handicap chase run on New Years Day. It was never intended to be contested by future Gold Cup horses, as we’ve seen in recent years.
The blame for this lies squarely with Edward Gillespie, who was solely resonsible for the changes to the race conditions, which slowly over a period of years, totally changed the nature of the race. He didn’t want the slow horses taking centre stage at his beloved festival (although he made an exception of course for his other bold innovation, the cross country chase).
In line with those changes, the prize money has risen, so that this year the race offered £75k compared to £98k for the RSA Chase. It’s actually worth more than the Grade 1 novice hurdle, the Grade 1 mares hurdle and the 3M handicap chase run on the same card.
What happens next probably depends on whether the BHA and the Cheltenham management think history, or perhaps more accurately heritage, is worth anything. If the race is to coninue over 4 miles for amateur riders, then a return to something like the old entry conditions is one option. Personally, I think the best solution now would be to move the race away from the Festival and run it as the centre piece of the April meeting. In effect, the amateur Grand National being run four days after the professional Grand National. But with stricter entry conditions, requiring sufficient previous experience, just as we now have at Aintree.
Such a move would remove the ‘must have a runner at the Festival’ element, take out the top class runners ducking stable companions in the RSA Chase, and generally see the race taken out of the ultra competitive environment in March. It’s worth noting that Cheltenham stage a 4M hunter chase at their May evening meeting, which has none of the problems we’ve seen in March in recent years.
Good old Brough. On Wednedsay he’s quoted in The Mail..
“The question of putting inexperienced horses with amateurs, and 18 of them, round here is something I don’t think is acceptable.
‘There has been a question mark on it for some time. When they did a review they had it open to question. They chose not to do something about it but I would be very surprised and deeply disappointed if they don’t change the conditions again.”
on Sunday its…
“…they do indicate a concern that the well-intentioned emphasis on horse welfare by racing’s governors is taking their necessary duty of care into a self-defeating policy of caution”
Henry Daly’s comments in the tone of, I’m a trainer therefore I dont need to be regulated, are laughable.
Silly man.
Cav, i think Henry Daly says a lot more useful stuff than that, but if you choose to ignore, go ahead!
Twitter: Jackh1092
Hindsight is 20/20 so make the most of it!Fantastic idea APRACING and wonderful memories of Cheltenham back in the day.
I would have been stood at the 3rd last during that National Hunt Chase,when racegoers were allowed to,unlike today when they are just shepherded into one area like sheep.I agree, well said apracing – nice to hear a reasoned argument from somebody with experience of that race and its history.
I didn’t ignore any of it, Jack.
He states…
– that its inappropriate for the BHA to be regulators of welfare in horseracing
– that amateur stewards not professional doctors should be the arbiters of raceday fitness
– the usual “how many winners have you trained” spiel
– that Trainers themselves should regulate welfareThat last point is particularly daft.
Whether its rounding on journalists, threatening jockeys, displaying complete ignorance of whats actually been said and written, disregarding data based evidence or ranting through the media, etc.
These people have portrayed themselves in a very poor light in recent weeks imo.
Agree with the OP (Mike). Novices running 4 miles over fences should not happen whether pro or amateur jockeys. Looking at the head on the 3rd and 4th horses were not given a particularly hard time after the last and can understand why the jockeys continued with the prizemoney on offer (remember the jockeys would not get their % being amateurs).
All down to the BHA – if they are that bothered about horse welfare the race should have been scrapped or dropped in distance (3 miles at most) long before now and as Ruby said should be run as the first on the card to hopefully get better ground conditions. To ban the jockey for continuing racing contrary to the horses welfare stinks of hypocrisy. At least Declan Lavery was “guilty” of this with only one horse. My feeling is that the BHA was guilty of this with 18 horses.
If the race continues in its present format I for one will be boycotting the race from a betting/watching perspective.
I don’t know whether the riders of the third and fourth should’ve pulled up or not. However
When Sir Anthony McCoy criticised the BHA in such agressive terms on ITV, did Sir Tony or ITV declare he had an interest? If so, I did not hear it and is not on the piece on You-tube.
McCoy used to ride for JP McManus and does he not still advise the owner of the third horse?
Of course he’s going to see the ride in the best of light.To portray McCoy as being the greatest jockey but without pointing out the possible conflict of interest would be imo dishonest.
ITV also showed the head-on of the run-in. Wasn’t the action taken primarily because the horses were deemed to be too tired to jump the last?
Value Is EverythingSince the change to improve the quality of the NH Chase in 2002, there’s been 67 who’ve either fallen or unseated of 345 runners, 19.42%.
In the same timespan there’s been 28 fallen or unseated in the RSA of the 211 runners. 13.27%.Seems Mr Henderson is wrong. Quite a big difference between amateurs and pro’s.
Value Is EverythingThe percentage difference can largely be explained by the extra distance/fences.
The argument rages on:
I repeat, choose not to watch but attacking the essence of NH racing will ultimately prove as damaging to all forms of racing as the BHA’s out-of-touch actions. No wonder trainers are furious with the BHA on many issues. Rust and his Aussie cronies are the biggest appeasers since Chamberlain. Racing needs its Churchill figure to draw the line and stand up for the fabric of the sport.
Richard Forristal hits the nail on the head again:
Since the change to improve the quality of the NH Chase in 2002, there’s been 67 who’ve either fallen or unseated of 345 runners, 19.42%.
In the same timespan there’s been 28 fallen or unseated in the RSA of the 211 runners. 13.27%.Seems Mr Henderson is wrong. Quite a big difference between amateurs and pro’s.
GT, surely with your love of analysis you can easily come up with the reasoning for hte 6.15% difference. The extra mile for starters adds to the likelihood of a fall or unseat, the fact a lot of the horses haven’t even run further than 3miles in their life and maybe don’t even need to, but due to the trainer/owner having a horse for the RSA they’ve been put there.
Obviously, being an amateur lends itself to not being quite as good as pros- on the whole this will clearly be the case, but the top percentile of amateurs are up there with the pros. There will be some that are running in the race, that are not as experienced or as good and therefore will make the mistakes to make a slight difference to the percentage of fallers + unseats.
However, to put the percentage down to just the jockey is wrong.
Twitter: Jackh1092
Hindsight is 20/20 so make the most of it!This is from Bruce Millington:
https://www.racingpost.com/sport/bruce-millington/social-media-critics-should-be-constructive/371916
What a strange piece from Mr. Millington. He wrote:
“I have been utterly appalled at the amount of prejudice towards Australians that has been expressed in recent days. The idea that someone is incapable of working in a senior role in British racing because they were born on the other side of the world is illogical, insulting and belongs to an era from which I thought we had long since mercifully emerged.”
I suppose one should not be too hard on Mr. Millington because we have no knowledge of his level of intellect or education, which may have had a negative effect on his ability to read a piece of text and comprehend what is being stated. Most young people these days have tuition on this subject at GCSE level. Interpreting “not got the necessary experience”, “comparing racing with blood sports”, “regulated jumping to near non-existence”, as “because they were born on the other side of the world”.
It is a typical journalist’s trick; deliberately misinterpreting something to make a punchier story. This is like the English Cricket Board employing coaches and managers from the USA to improve English cricket and cricketers; then people within the game saying it’s a bad move because they do not have suffient knowledge and experience, because the USA does not have first class cricket or first class cricket tournaments. A “good” journalist headline would be “UK cricketers insult and demean American coaches because they live on the wrong side of the Atlantic”. Creating this false fuss (about Australians) also masks his inability to discuss all the other issues about the BHA contained in the letter. That is why people regularly put journalists near the bottom of the list of respected professions; alongside politicians.
I find it amusing people saying get rid of the race
Like i said on the other thread talking about this
The betfair chase is often ran on bottomless ground and is gruelling to all except BDM cue card jumped that last fence like a horse that hd already given everything prior to the fence, why wasnt that a problem but this is?
Would any of these horses that fell have stood up with a different jockey on board? No
Ballyward fatally injured never died due to tiredness, he fell at halfway
The riders gave there horses correct rides
The idea that novices shouldnt be running in this or this distance are just plain stupid, honeyball saying so today is always idiotic, if he was so against kt why run ms parfois? She coped more than fine, the race has a fantstic record of producing top staying chasers
Again, time and time again itsa taxing sport to following because the people who follow it make it so, the australian in charge i have no issue with, aslong as hes experienced, which he isnt, so i couldnt care if hes from australia, glasgow or greenland, get rid of him
The ban DL got has just been overruled, end of story, move along…
GT, surely with your love of analysis you can easily come up with the reasoning for hte 6.15% difference. The extra mile for starters adds to the likelihood of a fall or unseat, the fact a lot of the horses haven’t even run further than 3miles in their life and maybe don’t even need to, but due to the trainer/owner having a horse for the RSA they’ve been put there.
Obviously, being an amateur lends itself to not being quite as good as pros- on the whole this will clearly be the case, but the top percentile of amateurs are up there with the pros. There will be some that are running in the race, that are not as experienced or as good and therefore will make the mistakes to make a slight difference to the percentage of fallers + unseats.
However, to put the percentage down to just the jockey is wrong.
Sorry if I gave you the impression I was putting the difference in percentage fallers was solely down to being amateur ridden, Jack. What I meant was imo the difference in percentages is imo too big not be something to do with it being amateurs – ie not as Nicky Henderson claims.
Yes, the race was over further and with more jumps which means more unseats/fallers can be expected in that regard. But there are also elements the other way too. Being over further means horses are going slower and therefore should be easier to see a stride/fewer fallers… And the National Hunt chase has a far greater variety of standards of horses taking part. Some are up there with or near the standard of an RSA, running against some unable to get in the handicap and/or hunter chase standard. eg 8 of the 18 runners were 40/1+. Therefore more room and again easier to see a stride/fewer fallers.
Yes, we agree the top percentile of amateurs are as good as pro’s; but point is there’s nowhere near enough of them to fill a NH Chase field (or even half a field)… Which means judgement of pace is poor and often run at too strong a pace – tired horses.
Yes, you’re right that so many horses going up significantly in trip – not just 3m to 4m but 2 1/2 to 4m – is asking for trouble and something needs to be done in order to tighten up the rules. If keeping to a novice chase something like: Horses must have been placed in a 3m+ chase and run in a 3m+ chase last time out no more than two weeks prior.
Value Is Everything
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.