THE Cheltenham Festival may be over for another year but the rancour generated by the fallout from last week’s National Hunt Chase is likely to be felt for some time to come.

The unfathomable suspension handed out to Declan Lavery for partnering Jerrysback into third became the focal point for much of the discussion that followed the four-mile race and justifiably so as the jockey should never have received such a sanction.

Disappointingly, a recurring theme from last week concerned the future of the National Hunt Chase after only four horses finished the four-mile marathon and the unfortunate Ballyward had to be put down as a result of the injuries he suffered in a fall early on the final circuit. The ill-fated Ballyward was among nine horses who either fell, unseated or were brought during the course of this year’s race.

Undeniably, this was a most exacting edition of the National Hunt Chase but there has been a glaring lack of perspective that accompanied the suggestions that the future of this race has to be in doubt. A four-mile chase on testing ground is going to be an attritional contest and it is no coincidence that nine casualties this year were preceded by five fallers the previous year when the race was run on going that was described as soft, heavy in places.

FALLER

Contrast this with 2017 when on ground given as good to soft Tiger Roll won a National Hunt Chase which featured just one horse that unseated their rider. Similarly in 2014 on ground given as good to soft, good in places there was just one faller.

Setting aside 2019 for a moment, it is interesting to compare the National Hunt Chase and the Grand Annual Chase on the Friday which is run over just two miles. During the period of 2014-2018 the number of horses who fell, unseated, were brought down or refused was actually of a greater number in the Grand Annual than it was in the four-miler – 14 as opposed to 18.

Indeed in the 2014 Grand Annual, there were six non-completions for the above reasons as opposed to one solitary faller in the National Hunt Chase. Admittedly, the Grand Annual was subject to some modifications in 2019 after last year’s race claimed three fatalities yet there was never a sense that the race’s future was in jeopardy.

The point of all this is that perspective is required and a four-mile chase run on testing ground is going to claim its share of casualties. This is not to underplay or make light of welfare concerns but considering the entire future of a race that had previously enjoyed a better safety record than others at the meeting doesn’t quite add up.

No one wants to see the level of non-completions that there were in last week’s race but there are other factors to consider and, as is often the case, broader view rather than a reactionary one is what is required. Hopefully, sense will prevail when the dust finally begins to settle.

Al Boum Phot winning the Savills Chase at Tramore on New Year's Day

Photo Healy Racing

Stars emerge from Tramore and other smaller tracks

ALL the way back on New Year’s Day, Tramore played host to what looked an exceptional renewal of its feature race of the year, the Listed Savills Chase, and that view was borne out in some style last Friday week when Al Boum Photo followed up his victory there in the Gold Cup. Even before Cheltenham, the form of the Savills Chase looked very strong with Invitation Only and Alpha Des Obeaux (third and fourth at Tramore) going on to fight out the finish of the Thyestes Chase.

The Gold Cup represented a tremendous success for Tramore, while another of the country’s smaller tracks that had cause for celebration was Sligo. The Mares’ Novice Hurdle winner Eglantine Du Seuil made her successful Irish debut there last August. She was beaten on her only other run, which came at Listowel in September, but the benefit of hindsight would suggest that a run which got her to within two lengths of the subsequent Grade 1 winner and Supreme Novices’ sixth Aramon made her a more lively contender than odds of 50/1 last Thursday suggested.

Lastly, November is a long time away, but a relatively low key race that is amassing quite the roll of honour is the three-year-old hurdle which acts as the curtain raiser to Down Royal’s top-class two-day fixture each November. The 2016 winner Mega Fortune went on to finish second in that season’s Triumph Hurdle and the 2018 scorer Coeur Sublime managed the very same feat last week. The 2017 edition of the Down Royal race went to Espoir D’Allen. It will be fascinating to see what turns up there in seven months’ time.

Bumper star to return for more Cheltenham glory

ON a final reprise of last week it is hard to believe than in the 27-year history of the bumper at Cheltenham that the race has produced just two winners who have then gone on to win at Grade 1 level over fences back at the festival in the coming years.

Florida Pearl was the first to manage that feat when he went from winning the 1997 bumper to landing the 1998 RSA Chase and he would go on to be placed in two Gold Cups.

The 2010 bumper winner Cue Card later added the Ryanair Chase to his fall and who knows what would have happened had he not come down with three to jump in the 2016 Gold Cup.

Such exalted targets like the Gold Cup are a very long way off for this year’s bumper winner Envoi Allen but this strapping gelding who keeps displaying an admirable will to win looks well equipped to scale the heights of the chasing division when his time comes.