THE wheels of change tend to turn at a glacial pace in the world of horse racing, so the alterations announced this week to the Cheltenham Festival’s race programme can be considered reasonably prompt - six months on from the 2024 meeting.
A number of the tweaks are rational and proactive, particularly the revised penalty structure for the Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle and qualification system for the Pertemps Final, but the removal of amateur-rider-only status for the National Hunt Chase feels like a lamentable move.
The race had already changed shape considerably down the years, notably when strict qualifying criteria were announced for horses and jockeys in 2019. It tied in with a drop in distance from its previous ‘four-miler’ title, following a controversial running that year, when there were four finishers from a field of 18 and some riders were viewed “to have continued in the race when it appeared to be contrary to the horse’s welfare”.
Whether it is officially the case or not, the feeling has lingered ever since that the race has been facing an uphill battle to maintain its amateur position at the meeting from there on - even with the adjustments that followed. Thursday’s decision to chip away at the tradition of amateur races at the meeting was regrettable, but not entirely surprising.
What is especially damning, though, is the fact that Britain’s Amateur Jockeys Association was reportedly not consulted on this major call for its members. The body’s chief executive Sarah Oliver told Sky Sports Racing on Thursday that she “knew nothing about the change” until contacted by officials at 10am on the morning of the news being released.
That is quite the poor look for those enforcing these new conditions, and doesn’t exactly scream of valuing the meeting’s amateur traditions.
Rider availability
The Jockey Club referenced that since the “rider experience restrictions that were introduced in 2019, the data shows that there is a limited pool of amateur jockeys available to ride in the race”, hence pushing the authorities towards this step of opening the race up to professionals. That discovery of a reduced pool cannot be a shock to anyone once you introduce changes to make it harder for riders to qualify for the race. The two go hand in hand.
In the IHRB’s latest published annual report for 2022, there was a decrease in the number of qualified riders for the second successive year to 279, but that was still higher than the 2019 figure of 272 jockeys in this category.
If officials used the logic that the mares’ races at the Cheltenham Festival were, in essence, left untouched during this reshuffle due to the wider boost they give to promoting mares being kept in training, then stripping away one of the biggest races in the amateur rider calendar does the exact opposite for incentivising riders to maintain their amateur status.
British trainer Jamie Snowden’s comments on the topic really took the biscuit on Sky Sports Racing this week.
“Nobody in this day and age would ever look at [the National Hunt Chase conditions] and think it’s a sensible thing to have a novice chase over an extended trip [for horses] ridden by the inexperienced jockeys,” he said, adding that “people would think we’re nuts” in modern times to invent such a race.
If Snowden feels comfortable referring to the crop of riders who competed in the last renewal of the National Hunt Chase as “inexperienced” and “novice”, he clearly has little understanding of the talents of those involved.
Here’s a quick glance at the first three riders home in 2024: Derek O’Connor (1,300+ point-to-point winners/dual Grade 1 winner under rules), Patrick Mullins (800+ winners on the track/25-time Grade 1 winner) and Gina Andrews (400+ point-to-point winners/closing in on 100 rules winners).
They were lining up against the hugely experienced Will Biddick (most successful rider in British point-to-point history with close to 600 winners), Barry O’Neill (800+ point-to-point winners/eight consecutive leading rider titles between the flags) and Rob James (almost 350 winners in point-to-points/Scottish Grand National winner).
There is nothing “novice” about those names.
Bloated programme
Yes, there is still the Kim Muir and the Festival Hunters’ Chase for amateurs to compete in at Cheltenham, but the question now lingers as to what sort of race we’re now facing into with the revised National Hunt Chase.
A novice handicap chase for horses rated 145 or less, run over three miles and six furlongs, does not obviously indicate spectacular quality at National Hunt racing’s marquee meeting.
Are we now looking at a slightly longer distance Kim Muir (also a 0-145 handicap chase), without the amateur riders and restricting it to novices? That will also likely take away from the standard of the Kim Muir, especially when the meeting already has another three-mile handicap chase in the shape of the Ultima.
Does anyone think we really need three staying handicap chases like this at the Festival? Should that conversation materialise in future, there’s surely every chance the Kim Muir could be identified as one of the weaker races of the three - and that won’t help the amateurs’ cause either.
One can clearly see that the Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase ought to receive a boost through this week’s shake-up, but the race has a mixed record of its winners going on to senior chasing success at the highest level and can at times be a grueller for novices. The National Hunt Chase, formerly a Grade 2, isn’t always as intense.
Of the 10 previous Brown Advisory winners before this year (leaving Fact To File as he hasn’t run since), eight never managed to win another Grade 1 chase. Might Bite and Don Poli were the exceptions.
Essentially, the real solution to making the Cheltenham Festival the absolute crackerjack of a meeting we all want it to be, would require a drop back down to three days, but bookmakers would run out of zeros on their keyboards quoting you odds on that happening. That looks an impossibility.
Attempts to strengthen the product are coming from a good place, but pushing amateurs closer to the door shouldn’t be one of the first steps. For as long as we’re racing over four days at Prestbury Park, there is surely enough room for tradition to exist alongside top-quality action.
IT was a relief last week to see Horse Racing Ireland opt against expanding the existing number of 395 meetings in its 2025 fixture list reveal.
When prize money is already not at the level where many feel they ought to be - as flagged up most recently by Ger Lyons after a winner at the Irish Champions Festival - spreading the pots any thinner would feel like a backwards step for the health of the game.
One separate piece of scheduling irked a couple of consignors I spoke with while on the ground at the Tattersalls September Yearling Sale this week.
It was remarked that having a flat meeting at Listowel on the same day as the sale kicked off was off-putting for flat trainers hoping to attend the Co Meath complex, when they could be required down the country for their runners. Even if they had decided to come a day earlier for inspections, there still would have been flat racing in the Kingdom clashing then.
This came in the same week as there was no turf flat racing on Thursday or Friday (Dundalk hosted all-weather action last night), while Listowel hosted National Hunt fixtures on both days.
Of course, trainers will still have means of buying horses if they are unable to attend themselves, but the question was asked whether a better ordering of the flat and National Hunt cards could have been fixed to help free up flat trainers to attend flat yearling sales.
Not optimum timing
To look a step further ahead in a sales sense, to have the new Goffs Irish Derby Breeze-Up Sale beginning on Thursday, June 26th - the same week as the Tattersalls Ireland Derby Sale - is surely not optimum timing for stakeholders either.
Nobody would suggest that finding solutions to please all parties is straightforward, but every effort ought to be made to support the many whose work underpins the sector. Avoiding clashes where possible is just one part of that.