Form, Facts, Feelings and Formulations about the Festival – Reflections on Cheltenham

How was the Cheltenham Festival for you? Personally I found it the best ever from a pure enjoyment standpoint, even though it takes its toll – particularly on the liver. It has definitely been a case of recovery and detox over the last few weeks ahead of going up to Aintree for more fabulous fun on Merseyside. Hardly surprising, as it is the NH Olympics, there was an enormous amount of views shared and arguments raging throughout the Festival week. As ever in racing, mostly clap-trap, but here are ten reflections.

1. It certainly wasn’t the highest standard of Festival that we’ve seen. The general view was that both the Champion Hurdle and the Gold Cup were 10lbs below normal, and there weren’t that many races that were truly memorable. For me personally, the highlight was one of my favourite horses, Defi Du Seuil, winning the Triumph Hurdle for Philip Hobbs and Richard Johnson. Such a hardy, game horse. Indeed I think Philip would run him every fortnight if he could. The best race to watch, I thought, was the Mares’ Championship with Apple’s Jade, Vroom Vroom Mag and Limini battling it out. Great to see Noel Fehily showing again what a champion he is, winning the top race on each of the first two days.
2. Definitely the best ever for the Irish, who are now dominant. The somewhat meaningless Prestbury Cup was a shoo-in for the Irish, with 19 vs. 9. Willie Mullins won over £750k and Gordon Elliott over £600k. The late 1980s seem more than a couple of decades ago, when it was a complete whitewash to the British on one occasion, and another year 17/1. The key question is why GB is falling behind.
3. Bloodstock prices continue to spiral into the stratosphere. I went along to the Tattersalls Ireland sale during the meeting and was flabbergasted to see 13 horses go for £100k plus, with a median of £120k and an average of £142,857. As the auctioneer said, “There is now fierce demand and a ferocious appetite for young horses with form.” You can say that again. The grass-roots owner clearly isn’t going to get a look-in.
4. The declining state of UK National Hunt racing. There was a working party to look at the decline in Northern NH racing, and maybe their remit should be broadened to the whole of the country. Yes, there is superb prize-money available at Cheltenham but it is lousy almost everywhere else. There is an interesting statistic to confirm that: the difference in prize-money between the top and everyday racing in many countries is four times, whereas in the UK it is now 100 times. Horses always follow the prize-money, and it is hardly surprising that top owners are migrating to Ireland where they can scoop up easy pickings in Graded races and easy handicaps.
5. The gap between the top and the bottom of the sport has never been greater. This really reiterates points 2-4 above. Is it time to change some of the rules and conditions for races to encourage the grass-roots owner? I did an analysis for the Racehorse Syndicates Association and amazingly there were only 40 syndicate horses at the Festival, even though there were quite a few partnerships. Many of us are now fishing in a different pond.
6. Was the drink crack-down worthwhile, and did it work? After the excesses of 2016 with some very unsavoury incidents, Cheltenham and the Jockey Club clearly needed to do something. It seems to have worked, although most people wouldn’t get many problems getting round the four-drinks-per-buyer rule. I saw lots of people buying four for themselves! There was also a crack-down in the town centre with on-the-spot fines. Sad, but necessary.
7. Rumblings about the bookmakers. There were no sympathies for the bookies, as they won on almost every race and there were numerous Festival flops, notably Douvan at 2/9, reportedly the shortest loser in a hundred years. There was more misery with Yanworth, Tombstone, Death Duty, Unowhatimeanharry and Djakadam. However it is rumoured that the BHA had a meeting with the Association of British Bookmakers, who want help in a rearguard action against imminent changes to do with fixed-odds betting terminals. I have zero sympathy with the bookmaking industry, who need to focus far more on innovation and collaboration with their racing partners.
8. Well done, ITV with their terrestrial coverage. Encouragingly for the whole sport, they lifted the viewing figures by 250,000, massively ahead of Channel 4’s last effort of 526,000 average viewers. It’s a lighter style and seems to be far more appealing to the general audience. A good start has been made by them.
9. Time to crack down on abuse of the whip again. Charlie Longsdon was desperately unlucky that his horse Pendra was collared in the final strides of the Kim Muir by Gina Andrews on 40/1 shot Domesday Book. She mercilessly flogged her horse, and rightly received a three-day ban for it. It seems really unfair that a rider who stays within the rules is beaten by one who doesn’t. Stewards should be given discretion to reverse the placings and behaviour would soon change, particularly if the culprits had to make a financial contribution to the owner for lost prize-money.
10. And possibly some other changes are needed. We are in an era now when top horses, owners and trainers can cherry-pick valuable Graded races and avoid all meaningful competition. This doesn’t do much for competitiveness, nor public interest. Should there be some qualifications added whereby horses for championship races must have competed in a minimum number of Graded races prior to the Festival? With the grass-roots owner not getting much of a look-in, should race conditions be framed to encourage them? So for example should there be more caps on second-tier races to force top owners to take their best horses up into the championship races? I would also have a syndicates-only race, but then I have been arguing for that for quite a few years.

Hopefully some food for thought there. Bring on Aintree!

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A.P. McCoy’s Retirement: “Time waits for no man. And it certainly isn’t going to wait for me.”

As you get older, you definitely struggle to remember names, telephone numbers and where you left the car keys. But for some strange reason you never forget winning bets. Rolling the clock back: a grey, drizzly day at Plumpton, 9th December 1997. A scratchy-actioned trainer in signature black donkey jacket leads a horse out from the parade ring, taps the boot of the rider and quietly emphasises, “Maximum persuasion, Anthony, maximum persuasion.” The horse in question was an unremarkable 101 hurdler who had only managed to win once in his 17 previous runs, in an ordinary bumper in Tipperary. However, this was the first run for Unsinkable Boxer for Martin Pipe and Tony McCoy. Backed down to 11/10 favourite, he hacked up by 8 lengths, before going on to win his next six races. His mark jumped to 150, taking in both the Cheltenham and Aintree Festivals. At Cheltenham this horse turned in one of the most impressive handicap wins ever, ridden with supreme confidence by A.P. (and irrelevantly, my largest-ever NH bet to date riding with him) in a 3m 1f hurdle. The race report doesn’t quite capture the ease of the win: “Held up and behind, steady headway 8th, led on the bit approaching 2 out, won in a canter.”

There must be millions of punters around the world who have their own similar memories of the phenomenal, record-breaking rider, A.P. McCoy, who unexpectedly announced his retirement after his 200th winner of the season on board Mr. Mole in the Game Spirit Chase at Newbury. Many of us will have a “J.F. Kennedy” reaction of “Where were you on Saturday, 7th February 2015?” I’ll certainly never forget it – not least because I was at Uttoxeter with one of our horses, where Anthony Honeyball’s Rouquine Sauvage, ridden by his fiancée Rachael Green, was taking part in a 2m mares’ handicap hurdle. There were no connections present to cheer on horse or rider, so my wife and I, together with friends, became “honorary owners” for the day and I had the enjoyable experience, after a super winning ride from Rachael, of being called up to receive the prize as “Mr. J.P. McManus’s representative”. A.P.’s 200th winner was also in J.P.’s silks.

Obviously the statistics relating to A.P. are phenomenal: barring accidents, he will be lifting the trophy for his 20th consecutive jockey championship in the spring; the first jockey ever to ride 4,000 jumps winners (at Towcester, 7th November 2013 – I was also there that day, with a runner); galloped past Gordon Richards’ record of 269 winners with a total of 289 in 2001/02, and probably for A.P. a milestone that really mattered in passing Martin Pipe’s career tally of 4,191 on 18th July 2014. From then on there was only one more record, realistically, for him to break, and that certainly seemed likely at the start of this season: he had had his fastest-ever 50th, 100th and 150th winners when a bone-crunching fall at Worcester dislocated his collarbone, cracked a few ribs and punctured a lung, before a few weeks later breaking the same collarbone that he had earlier dislocated. The goal of 300 winners in a season then became impossible.

After the announcement of retirement, lots of commonality in the descriptions: determined, obsessive, driven, phlegmatic, disciplined, iron man. In his own words, one comment summed him up. “There have been loads of better riders than me: John Francome, Richard Dunwoody, Peter Scudamore, Charlie Swan, Ruby Walsh, Richard Johnson and Barry Geraghty. But I’ve been an over-achiever ….. The trick is that you mustn’t get too up, and you mustn’t get too down. It’s the fear of losing that matters, rather than the enjoyment of winning. That’s what keeps you going.”

So from now till the end of the season there is quite rightly bound to be a celebration wherever he rides, and it is most definitely a public relations godsend for racing. From the very next day, the Sunday after his retirement, the sports pages were full of photos and commentaries. Without any doubt there is a tremendous amount of goodwill towards A.P. and his family, and everyone is now hoping that he gets through to the end of the season in one piece and good shape, before deciding what to do next. It’s a real pity that racing doesn’t have its own version of the U.S. Hall of Fame to capture and acknowledge his immense stature and contribution to National Hunt racing.

The final comment is from J.P.: “Anthony was a great man to have on your side. To be sure, I wouldn’t have wanted to have him against me.”

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.