The Cheltenham Festival – The Ace in the Pack. It’s Certainly Bigger, But Is It Better?

My wife and I went along to The Centaur at Prestbury Park on Sunday to listen to an excellent OLBG-sponsored preview evening chaired by Jeremy Kyle, with the panel consisting of Ruby Walsh, A.P. McCoy, John Francome and Fergal O’Brien. John was definitely the star of the evening – informative and witty in equal measure. I believe, probably like many people, that he’s the finest NH jockey I’ve seen and certainly the one with the best sense of humour. Throughout the evening he was the butt of lots of Kyle comments, but he wafted them away with wit and aplomb, even at the interval when Kyle kept emphasising that the show had to stop to enable John to go to the toilet. Rather grossly, when he came back, he enquired whether he’d had time to “empty his bag”. We all know that Mr. Kyle spends lots of time with losers, so he’s probably not used to dealing with one of the all-time stars of the game. At one point during the evening John was reflecting on how, in the early days, he had to fill in a form stating who he wanted contacting in the event of a serious accident on the course. He just wrote on the form, “a doctor”. Oh, for the days when racing was more light-hearted, and real characters dominated the stage.

Listening to John also had me thinking back to the first time I went to the Festival in 1981. What was the big talking point on Day One that year? Anyone who was there will immediately say it was the famous Francome pull on Sea Pigeon going into the last hurdle. The horse was travelling so well, he didn’t want to hit the front too early, so the brakes were put on before he scampered away from the magnificent Monksfield to win by seven lengths at the top of the hill – the most breathtaking piece of riding I’ve seen in National Hunt.

Nothing like nostalgia in our sport, is there, and all the debates on who the greatest horses of all time would be, and the best trainers, jockeys and dare I say it, even owners. Mentioning Monksfield is what the marketing and media types call a “segue” – a link to another subject. He wasn’t a big horse at all, but an incredibly game battler who had a huge, raking stride on him. In Owners for Owners, we’re in the really fortunate position to have a horse with a similar and almost freakish action in Acey Milan, who at the time of writing this blog is 3rd favourite for the Champion Bumper and on form, having won two Listed bumpers at Cheltenham and Newbury, is the second top rated horse in the race and the highest rated bumper in Great Britain. He’s had quite a long season now, with four races – three wins and one second – so how well he does depends on whether he has held his form going into the Festival. As he can only have a fifth bumper run in a Listed race, we didn’t really have any choice but to head into the Champion, and once he’d won the top-quality Newbury bumper by 11 lengths we all decided that he had to take his chance. No matter what happens this week, he looks a lovely prospect for the future.

The only similarity I have with John Francome is age, and the four days of the current Festival certainly take their toll – on the liver and the aching knees as I rack up miles of walking around the course and mountainous climbs up the various stands. It sometimes feels like a test of endurance, with similarities to the 4m National Hunt Chase on Day One, which hopefully Anthony Honeyball (trainer of Acey Milan) will win with Ms Parfois.

One of the recurring themes throughout the week is bound to be whether the predominance of Cheltenham is sometimes to the detriment of National Hunt racing. Superficially it seems obvious that the whole Festival frenzy is a most wonderful promotion of racing as well as a huge revenue-generator. When I saw Sea Pigeon the attendance was a quarter of what it is now, and the facilities were dreadful in comparison. This week, over a quarter of a million people are likely to attend. If they all spend, say, £100 minimum getting in and having a few drinks on the course, then as the Americans would say, “do the math”. Indeed with Guinness at a fiver and a glass of wine at a tenner, it doesn’t take long to get past that minimum figure.

It’s probably inevitable that the four-day Festival will soon span five days, with the Gold Cup on Saturday. For the large numbers of people for whom the Festival is all about being at a big occasion and drinking yourself horizontal, it doesn’t really matter. If you’re an afficionado who wants to see the most competitive, highest quality racing, then the risk is dilution of that through a wider range of additional races that trainers can pick and mix from. As we’re now in an era where four trainers in Messrs. Elliott, Henderson, Mullins and Nicholls, and prime owners such as Gigginstown, J.P. McManus, Simon Munir / Isaac Suede and Rich Ricci, there is an increasing risk that trainers and owners with their top horses can avoid the competition that genuinely produces champions. However, I’m sure that economics will prevail and that the mighty, heroic clashes of yesteryear become less frequent, which is a real pity.

In the last blog I mentioned how much I’d enjoyed going over to Leopardstown for the two-day Dublin Festival. Even in my dotage I think that I could survive a two-day Cheltenham Festival, which of course is never going to happen, but that would be my absolute ideal. Three days I thought was excellent; I’m dubious about four; and I definitely wouldn’t attend five. Of course, if Acey Milan has ended up by winning the Champion Bumper, then I can probably invest in a top-of-the-range zimmer frame.

Enjoy the week, everyone.

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Will the Change in Media Contract From Channel 4 to ITV Bring the Lost Viewers Back to British Racing?

Farewell to Channel 4, after 31 years of broadcasting racing, and welcome back, ITV – starting with Cheltenham on New Year’s Day 2017. The Racecourse Media Group, acting on behalf of British Racing, announced at the beginning of the year that ITV had been granted the exclusive rights to broadcast racing, having won the bidding battle and being prepared to pay £30m over four years for the privilege. Apparently the intention is to split the broadcasts, with approximately 30 days’ racing from the showcase meetings such as Cheltenham, Ascot and Goodwood on the main ITV station, and another 60 days or so on ITV4. If you were cynical you would say that ITV offered the most money and the racecourses accepted the highest offer. If you were more positive you would be hoping that lost viewers would be attracted back to the sport, and new ones be brought in. With the BHA’s growth strategy to 2020 now being implemented, this is yet another element which, if it works, will be of real benefit to the sport …. but equally if it fails, it could be a big step back for racing.

It is funny how just thinking about ITV took me straight back to my student days when I first watched racing on that channel, under the enthusiastic if somewhat hesitant John Rickman, Raleigh Gilbert and Lord Oaksey. Indeed I used to frequent a local Chester pub, The Little Oak, and can still remember the smoke-filled tap room, agonising over selections for the ITV 7, then handing over a few pounds from my student grant (remember those?) before settling back with cheese and onion baps and a few pints of Greenall Whitley strong bitter, while the poorly-selected nags were duly beaten. It got me hooked on the idiocies of betting on accumulators and a fondness for beer glasses with handles.

In those days the transmission of racing was incredibly rudimentary, and yet somehow seemed very authentic and really engaged the racing fan. I have always felt that the stories of racing revolve around first and foremost the horses and their heroic deeds, with everything else secondary to that. I can easily do without high technology and mind-numbing analysis of betting patterns, as long as the equine heroes are allowed to captivate the viewer. Admittedly I also enjoy listening to highly knowledgeable, insightful people talking about their sport, be they trainers, owners, pundits, commentators, journalists or whoever. Sometimes in newspaper features you read of the interviewee’s ideal dinner guests, and my selections would be Sir Mark Prescott, Alastair Down, Johnnie Francome and Alice Plunkett. You know that the conversation would be lively and the stories fascinating, and probably scurrilous. My role would only extend to wielding the corkscrew.

Like many people since the ITV announcement was made, I have been wondering about what should now change with the broadcasting, why it needs to change and whether there are any risks associated with it all.

Without any doubt there has been a dramatic decline in viewers under the most recent Channel 4 contract. Apparently Royal Ascot was down by 50%; similarly the Derby; while Champions’ Day last year had barely a third of a million viewers. Putting that into context: ITV often has well over 400,000 viewers to watch “important” darts games. ITV is probably second only to the BBC in terms of its prestige and popularity, so on that basis alone it ought to bring in substantially more viewers, and should be able to cross-promote racing to other parts of its sporting rights portfolio. After all, it covers top events such as the Tour de France (brilliantly), French Open tennis, Six Nations rugby and Euro 2016. Telling the stories of a sport well and connecting to viewers ought to be among their core competencies, so there isn’t any likely reason as to why they can’t do as good a job, if not better, than Channel 4. Indeed I actually feel that the overall standard of Channel 4 coverage has been excellent and they have probably been criticised somewhat unfairly. From a technical and content perspective they have done well – although like many people I believe that the programme had become dull and somehow lacked the fun and chemistry of the Alastair Down / Johnnie Francome era.

On the change front there is a need for a significant clear-out from the current Channel 4 team. Selecting the anchor presenters will be critical. Names that have been suggested include Oli Bell (RUK), Ed Chamberlain (Sky football presenter), Matt Chapman (ATR), John Inverdale (BBC), Mark Pougatch (ITV’s lead football presenter) and of course Nick Luck to transfer across. Even Jeremy Kyle’s name has gone into the frame. Personally I’d love to see Johnny Francome and Ruby Walsh closely involved, rather than any of the current ex-jockeys. And do bring back Alastair Down, but definitely not John McCririck. Gina Harding should definitely be in as well. While I’m neutral on more or less technology, I’d certainly like to see much stronger content coverage of the horses themselves, both on the track and behind the scenes.

A big debating point will doubtless revolve around bookmakers and the betting coverage. It is easy to forget that only a few years ago, Channel 4 had to be paid money from the Levy Board grant to ensure that there was coverage. Now, with the legislation change that allowed bookmakers to advertise on TV, there is a massive revenue stream flowing from the bookies’ marketing spend. This source of revenue is doubtless one of the major reasons for media companies being so keen to bid for the racing rights. As always with bookies though, they will expect a lot in exchange. Maybe, if we’re lucky, we’ll see some real innovation in bookie offerings that can then become woven into the new coverage. ITV 7, anyone (or a modern version)?

Finally, are there any risks? I suppose the biggest, by a considerable margin, is that the viewer decline continues and racing finds that there isn’t that much interest any more in racing programmes per se, but that the British public only really likes racing as a backdrop to concerts, ladies’ days, fashion shows and prodigious drinking. Another one, I fear, is that we see an accelerating trend towards two tiers of racing: fabulous high days but, alas, far too many days of mediocrity. This could easily be reflected in the two streams of the ITV platform. The quality and success or otherwise of the ITV4 broadcasts will be critical.

I for one wish the new ITV broadcasts the very best of luck …. and next time I’m in Chester on a Saturday afternoon I think I’ll even pop into The Little Oak and see whether there’s a new generation of racing enthusiasts cheering on the latter-day equivalent of the ITV 7.

I am always interested to hear your views so please do leave a comment. If you can't see the comment box at the bottom of this post then navigate to the post using the right hand navigation or click here > and scroll to the bottom of the page. Look forward to hearing your views. Thanks very much for sharing them.