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There’s a thought re Dawn Run. If she completed the fabled Dawn Run Hurdle, Mares Hurdle, Ryanair Chase treble, would anybody have bothered with a statue? Another victim of this race is the statue making guild. Does anybody ever think of them?
Hi AP
Envy and admiration. I though I was dapper for having a ‘The Horsemans Year’ which taught me that the Grand Sefton was longer than the Becher.Hi fivelongdays
The fact that you need to restrict the parameters from all available information to a year by year, position by position basis does not compel me to view the race more favourably. In my admonishment of the race, one prong of my argument was that the race conditions are not conducive to producing champions ergo not every winner would win the Champion Chase or Gold Cup. Nevertheless, it regularly detracts from the big race fields including probable win and placed horses. Despite your shifting of the goalposts, I am still happy to indulge.Why wouldn’t have Imperial Commander won the 2009 Gold Cup? You’re dismissing him the same way he was dismissed at the time for the Lancashire Chase later that year (lost by a nose on the nod at 9/1) and the following year’s Gold Cup (won by seven lengths at 7/1). Did Imperial Commander really improve by almost a stone from the age of 8 to 9?
Nothing would have beaten Sprinter Sacre in 2013. However, Cue Card being a horse of genuine class was capable of winning Champion Chases and Gold Cups – particularly ordinary renewals such as the one Bobs Worth won that year. While this is speculation and Cue Card’s demolition of Bobs Worth in that year’s Lancashire Chase was probably too good to be true, Bob’s Worth would not have been a heavy favourite against Cue Card in his Gold Cup. He definitely wouldn’t be odds on if First Lieutenant was also in that line up.
Vautour had a lot of use made of him at Kempton but if he was held up in that season’s Gold Cup then he would have had every chance of staying if settling and his class certainly would have made him very competitive. But even if stamina was too much of an issue in a nine runner Gold Cup on good ground, then what odds would you have given on him beating the ten year old post irregular heartbeat Sprinter Sacre and his lesser rated stablemate Un De Sceaux in the Champion Chase?
But if you wanted just one then Un De Sceaux would have confirmed his superiority over Special Tiara, making the tally 3-0 after the 2017 Clarence House and the 2016 Champion Chase.
By 1939, the meeting had been extended to three days, and starts to look a lot more like the Festival I remember from the 70’s and 80’s.
Tues Mar 7th
Newent Selling Hcp Ch 2M 200
United Hunts Challenge Cup 3 1/2M 200
Champion Hurdle 2M 1000
National Hunt Hcp Ch 3M 1000
Grand Annual 2M 650
Gloucestershire Hdle 2M 500Wed Mar 8th
Lansdown Selling Hcp Hdle 2M 200
Seven Springs Hcp Ch 2 1/2M 500
National Hunt Chase 4M 1000
National Hunt Juvenile Chase 2M 500
Broadway Novice Chase 3M 500
Costwold Chase 2M 500Thur Mar 9th
Spa Hurdle 2M 200
County Hurdle 2M 1000
Cheltenham Gold Cup 3M 2F 1000
Swindon Selling Chase 3M 200
Foxhunters Chase 4M 350
Cathcart Challenge Cup 2M 500Change the names to the current incarnations and this includes at least four races per day that are still run at the Festival.
Gloucestershire Hdle – Supreme Novice
Seven Springs Hcp Ch – Mildmay of Flete – Plate
Broadway Nov Ch – Sun Alliance – RSA
Cotswold Ch – Champion Chase
Cathcart Chase – Ryanair (officially the Festival Trophy)Also note that only five of the eighteen races were run over hurdles, and all of those were at 2M.
And to demonstrate that sadly, some things never change, the large typeface headline at the top of the racing coverage in the Wednesday paper, read:
“FOUR HORSES KILLED”.
Thanks for the info re: the juvenile chase APR
Found this snippet in the RP archives. 12 fences suggests it was run over a less demanding 2m, latterly at least
National Hunt Juvenile Chase (1892-1958)
Imagine the four-year-olds at the meeting facing 12 fences instead of the eight flights of the Triumph Hurdle. That was what happened in the bizarre NH Juvenile Chase, in which hardly any of the field had run over fences before, and many had not reached their actual fourth birthday or been schooled properly. There was often wholesale carnage with few finishers.
The winners hardly ever amounted to much in the long run, rare exceptions being Gold Cup victor Medoc and Grand National heroes Grakle and E.S.B. Not before time, it was replaced by the Champion Chase in 1959
That sounds right Drone – just checked 1921 and the newspaper has it at 2M then. Hardly likely it was changed to 3 1/2M for just one year!
Who remembers now that the festival used to stage selling hurdles…………and why not give the lower rung horses their moment of glory, after all they do run all year and are a part of NH racing. The conditions could be framed along a max rating say, and a bit like Irish rated jumps races give the higher rated a chance with extra weight above the rating ceiling. The purists wouldn’t like it for sure, but it would certainly be interesting and attract a few of the less able runners.
KB will do well to come up with a better programme than BH.
He hasn’t, just seen it. 5 races a day for 4 days
What a shocking idea
Can tell he doesn’t have to pay to get in The Juvenile Handicap hurdle should be the first to be scrapped.
It weakens the triumph and very few of the horses who usually run in the race have enough form in the book to be able to give an accurate handicap mark to.
The best juveniles should be in the triumph and anything else should be left at home. The need for 2 races designed specifically for horses of the same age is beyond me.
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