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1) after getting fed up with the lack of jump runners they scrap jumping and build a sand track.
2)turn the amlin chase into a limited handicap so they can get as many as 7 runners
3)scrap the amlin and replace it with a 0-120 handicap
4)double the amlin prize fund to 100000 and have grade one conditions
5)use their Betfair connections to get the Betfair chase from haydock (all the runners were from the south anyway)The Amlin was a limited handicap up to 2009, most recently with their sponsorship.
Prior to that it had been run as the First National Bank Gold Cup through the 90’s and up to 2004 when Ascot closed for the rebuilding work.
Go back further and it was called the Black and White Whiskey Gold Cup – and who ever was the sponsor, it was a race that produced a lot of top class winners. It was also an Intermediate Chase – i.e limited to horses that had been novices at the start of the previous season.
In this century, that type of horse now starts its second season on a much higher handicap mark than used to be the case in the 90’s and earlier. So they are more inclined to have a shot at the Paddy Power which is now much more valuable and the intermediate limited handicap failed to attract a competitive field.
To give an example, in 1996, the Ascot race was won by Strong Promise from a handicap mark of 128 and the total prize fund was £40k. Strong Promise had also run in the Cheltenham race a week earlier, finishing second from 19lbs out of the handicap – that race was worth £60k.
Strong Promise was still a novice in his first season chasing, but he’d won the Grade 1 Aintree Hurdle earlier in the year. There’s no way under the current system that he’d ever have been able to run in a handicap chase off 128!
So the combination of increased prize money at Cheltenham and the change to the handicapping of lightly raceed chasers have combined to make the Ascot race unattractive. And of course there was no Betfair Chase in the 90’s.
In light of Alan’s post, perhaps the best thing Charles Barnett could do before retiring is have a quiet word with Phil Smith about the structure of handicapping second season novices. Phil was quite easily influenced for the Grand National
I reckon the only way they can retain the race as a feature contest and get a decent sized field is to go back to the Intermediate Handicap format.
But put in a top rating limit of either 145 or 150 and then aim the race at the same horses that contest the 2m 4f novice handicap at Cheltenham earlier in the year. That always gets twenty runners, so if you attract half of them, you have a worthwhile race.
In that format, it would also be attractive to horses that have been active during the summer and that lost their novice status at the end of October.
A lot will come out of this, but Ascot are going to struggle in the forthcoming years. Take from that what you will.
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