- This topic has 8 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 3 years, 3 months ago by
.
- Posts
“The National Hunt Chase has lots of history and tradition but since the reduction in distance it has been rendered pointless.”
I noticed this comment from Cork All Star in another thread and it got me thinking about that history and tradition and how many people are fully aware that it’s been cancelled (I believe that’s the modern term) and how drastically the race has been changed.
I actually owned a runner in the 1991 renewal, a horse called Liam’s Pride, trained by Stan Mellor. The horse was really owned by a partnership, but as I had the largest share (33%), it ran in my name and colours. The conditions of the race in 2023 require a handicap rating of 120+ and at least one placing in a race at 2M 7F or longer. Liam’s Pride was rated 91 and had never run over further than 2M 5F – he had won his final race before Cheltenham, but that was a five runner 2M novices handicap chase at Leicester, hardly the ideal prep for a 4M race at Cheltenham.
But he still went off as a 16/1 chance in a field of 18, in which the highest rated runner was on 112 and the eventual winner was rated 100. Liam’s Pride trailed home 9th of 10 finishers, about 80L behind the winner, with the form book comment ‘al behind : t.o.’ Still, it was a runner at Cheltenham and I’ve never had another one.
The race then was a 4M amateur riders chase for horses that were maidens at the start of the season – i.e. they had not won on the flat, over hurdles or over fences. And those had been the conditions for as long as I’d been aware of the Cheltenham festival. It essentially suited the big, backward types that lacked the speed to win over hurdles, but despite the often low quality of the field, it produced a lot of top quality staying chasers.
The first time I saw the race live was in 1983, when it was won by Bit Of A Skite, owned by J P McManus. He went on to win the Irish National a few weeks later. Four years later I watched Mighty Mark win by 8L despite ploughing through the last fence and it was no surprise when he returned the following season to win the Scottish National. And this was very much the pattern in that period, a horse with no previous record of success would win the N H Chase and go on to be a force in staying chases. The 1990 winner Topsham Bay scored at 40/1, a price that didn’t look generous to those of us that owned a form book! But in the next two years, he won six more races, three of them at Cheltenham, and had an enforced 13 month injury layoff before scoring the first of two successes in the Whitbread Gold Cup in 1992.
Another future Whitbread winner was Ushers Island, the winner of 1993 N H Chase for Howard Johnson on just his second start for him having previously been unsuccessful over hurdles in Ireland. Sadly for the race, the next few years saw a run of winners that failed to go on and achieve much subsequently – something you might also say about the The Gold Cup in those years. This was the point at which the Cheltenham management opted to make the first change to the conditions, turning the race into a standard novice chase from 2002, effectively just a longer version of the existing 3M race, then sponsored bySun Alliance.
It took a while for this to attract better novices to run in the race, but Gordon Elliott set a new high by winning with the 151 rated Chicago Grey in 2011. He’d been a Listed winner over hurdles in Ireland, won at Cheltenham earlier in the season and had his last run before the festival in the Grade 3M novice chase at Leopardstown, beaten less than 5L by the winner. This was the first N H Chase won by a horse that would have been a worthy runner in the 3M contest.Since then, health and safety officially, public image in reality, have nibbled away at the race, limiting the runners by setting a minimum handicap mark and requiring proof of stamina, cutting the distance and also eliminating less experienced amateur riders. We’ve all seen where that has led, with small fields dominated by the leading Irish ‘amateur’ riders – Jamie Codd and Patrick Mullins have won five of the last six renewals, a sequence broken by Jack Kennedy!
I doubt that there is anybody within the senior levels of Jockey Club Racecourses, who still cares to look back at the history of this race. It began over 160 years ago and was run at several different courses before settling at Cheltenham in 1911. The list of post war winning riders includes some great names in the sport – Lord Mildmay (Mildmay Course at Aintree, Mildmay of Flete, a name dropped by Cheltenham), John Lawrence (aka Lord Oaksey, driving force in the creation of the IJF), Ian Balding, John Thorne (who also trained his winner Polaris Missile, later the dam of Spartan Missile), Michael Dickinson, Robert Alner, Mouse Morris, Willie Mullins (twice, on horses trained by his father), Lorcan Wyer and Tony Martin.
The winning trainers list has just as many impressive names – Vincent O’Brien, Bob Turnell, Tom Taaffe, Edward O’Grady, Stan Mellor, Mick O’Toole, Toby Balding, Tim Forster and more recently, Jonjo O’Neill, who has sent out six winners of the race since 1995.
Does any of that matter – well I think it ought to, but I concede that the current condition of the race offers little to make it matter. Relegated now to last place on day one, contested this year by just four British trained horses, three of whom started 50/1 or bigger, would there be a howl of complaint if Cheltenham quietly dropped the race and replaced it with a veterans race, or a mares novice chase?
My preferred solution would be to move the race away from the festival. Either run it at another meeting at Cheltenham, April would make sense. Better still, switch it to another of the JCR courses, or even make it a moveable feast. At the same time, drop the idea of running it as a novice chase – the demand for 4M novice chases isn’t great as this being the only one run all season demonstrates. Open it up to any chaser in training, including hunters, and develop conditions that keep it reasonably competitive. E.g. No chaser that has won any of the big Nationals, or been placed in a Grade 1 novice race, or any Graded race for experienced horses.
Moving it away from the festival will instantly reduce the interest from Ireland, as would dropping the Grade 2 status and reducing the prize money. This is a race that used to be commonly known as the Amateurs Grand National, but whether it can be revived to reclaim that title, I’m not sure. Sadly, I suspect the damage that’s been done over the last twenty years has gone too far and that the modernisers will be happy to organise the funeral.
Thanks for that summary AP.
Didn’t they used to run around the back of the stands in days gone by?
I think the changes to the race mean it is now just a slightly longer version of the Brown Advisory.
“Would there be a howl of complaint if Cheltenham quietly dropped the race and replaced it with a veterans race, or a mares novice chase?”
I doubt there would. Looking at this year’s renewal, there looked to be a fairly sparse crowd greeting the favourite into the winners enclosure.
To be fair, the weather had turned a bit unpleasant so maybe a lot of the spectators had taken shelter. But I can’t help feeling that a lot more felt they had already seen the day’s highlights and had made a dash for the station rather than watch a staying chase for pretend amateur riders.
Lovely post Alan.I too miss the previous version of The National Hunt Chase.
Back in the day when racegoers were allowed into the middle of the course(health & safety again)I used to stand by the first fence and then see them jump the 3rd last on the next 2 circuits and can well remember seeing 30 runners in the race.
Sadly it’s a pale of it’s former self and will soon be axed I guess which is what some at the BHA have wanted all along.Maybe make it a restricted race for British-trained horses. It is called the National Hunt Chase after all. I think it’d be nice to have a race for stables that would otherwise be crowded out by Mullins et al. to have their moment in the sun at Cheltenham.
You keep this sort of attitude up and you’ll be shackled in leg irons to the running rail at the furthest end of the new course!!
A clear case of Mullinsophobia and Irishophobia.
Why should a meeting like the Cheltenham Festival want to stage a race for “smaller yards?”
Royal Ascot has no such race.
The quality of “the Fez” has already been diluted by the addition of a fourth day and 28 races so I’d say that concept is the last thing it needs.
It sounds fairly patronising too, tbh – “I once trained a winner at the Cheltenham Festival! But, err, it was that race for ‘little yards’ which train slow old boats.”
Either you have a horse with the quality for Cheltenham or you don’t.
That’s how it should be IMO.
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
https://mobile.twitter.com/Ian_Davies_
https://www.facebook.com/ThePointtoPointNHandFlatracingpunter/
It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"You’re right about the competitors running behind the stands Ian.
This was on Twitter a couple of weeks ago.
You can just see the 1st fence of the NH Chase course at the top.
This 1911 course map pic is from Peter Stevens excellent book on the race, also interestingly says 1928 a four day meeting was considered by the NH committee but the idea was rejected. pic.twitter.com/hCu3n44q0W
— Peter (@fawwon1) March 12, 2023
If only a racecourse station was still there instead of the hike to the track nowadays!
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.