There are people, and you can count yours truly firmly among them, who, from the moment the Martin Pipe Hurdle is concluded, begin the countdown to the following season’s incarnation of the Cheltenham Festival. That will probably and hopefully eternally be the case.
Forget about the trainers and jockeys and even the owners for a minute. Think of the folk for whom their annual holidays and as a consequence their entire year gets planned around early March and Prestbury Park.
Now, even from an employment point of view, the extra day is going to put the kybosh on any patron’s plans to partake in the pilgrimage to the Mecca of the sport. Taking one or two days off – as is the norm – may be one thing but there are unlikely to be too many employers willing to deal with being down staff for an entire week. Especially as the world is now.
Much more importantly than all that, though, how on earth are the Brains Trust going to structure the racing to suit a five day Festival? The most important race in jump racing’s calendar will be shamefully devalued by staging it on a Saturday. At present, each of the flagship races – the Champion Hurdle, Champion Chase, Stayers’ Hurdle and the Gold Cup are the sporting highlight for the entire world on their allotted day.
Stage the Gold Cup on a Saturday and it runs the risk of getting swallowed up by Premier League football and Six Nations rugby and, from an Irish perspective, a GAA season just bubbling up nicely.
Even all of the above doesn’t address the two biggest issues, as far as this writer is concerned. What way are the races going to be structured? And what becomes of the ‘ordinary’ racing scheduled for the Saturday?
First things first, some of the main races – like those highlighted above – or obviously going to have to be moved around in order to fill out four days of racing. Not that even doing so would solve all which would need to be in order to make this asinine development even remotely attractive.
Then, spare a thought for both Kempton and Uttoxeter. The former have, traditionally, what amounts to a consolation fixture for horses who don’t get a run at the Festival. However, as bad as messing up the fixture for the triple purpose venue would be, it will surely decimate what is Uttoxeter’s premier meeting of the entire season.
The Midlands National is the centrepiece thereof. One of the great staying chases of the National Hunt season, it’s a race Irish raiders have, in more recent years, had a fine record in. Goonyella winning the arduous stamina test for Jim Dreaper while the Pat Fahy trained Mr Fogpatches has, I think, been placed on a couple of occasions therein.
Then, there’s the fact the fact that Irish racing would also have to alter scheduling with a fifth day now in the calendar. All in all, it’s hard to know who the extra day will benefit. Apart from the bookies and the hospitality industry, the only thing that can be foreseen is chaos and the devaluation of the most important event in the sport.
Whatever about having to rejig the existing 28 races, it is obvious that additional races will have to be ‘generated’ uo fill up five days of action. Not to mention doing so without any diminishment to the quality and attractiveness of the Festival.
With the greatest of respect to everybody and everything, festooning the racing Olympics with handicaps certainly runs the risk of doing so. I know there was one particular handicap run a couple of years back at the Festival – possibly a middle distance event – which was only staged the once and then discontinued.
There is a gap there alright and possibly one for a Mares Bumper, but outside of that I don’t see where there’s room for anything else. Or a need for it either.
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