THE proposed changes to the Cheltenham Festival came in for much debate last week, with views ranging from those who were predictably horrified (largely from the traditionalists and/or amateur riders due to changes to that anachronism, the National Hunt Chase) to those who saw the changes as a good start, but wanted more, and various shades of indignation in between.

Aside from the amateurs, who are aggrieved at the lack of consultation, the loudest voices are those who feel that turning the National Hunt Chase and the Cross Country Chase into handicaps is against the ethos of the Cheltenham Festival, arguing simply that Cheltenham in March should be about the best running against the best.

If you walk into a racing-centred pub and shout that at the top of your lungs, you’re sure to get a roar of approval. You bloody shouldn’t though – it’s a downright stupid argument, and one that has led us to the sorry state that we’re in now, and it’s inevitable that if you try to make as many Cheltenham races into championships of some sort that you are not improving the quality of the Festival, you are detracting from it.

It shouldn’t be hard for anyone to see the folly of “quality” at Cheltenham as it’s a simple case of supply and demand. You can divide all jumps horses roughly into four categories under the headings Chase, Hurdle, Speed and Stamina, with some overlap of those in each category.

Championship races

It makes sense to have Championship races in each of those categories and that is catered for with the Champion Hurdle, Champion Chase, Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup. That’s a well-agreed starting point.

If you define quality in a chaser as having a rating in excess of 160, then there are no more than 30 horses at any time to fill your quality races. If you have two championship races, you can have a pool of around 15 for each, although some of those will be novices and at any point some will either be injured, or worse.

If you throw in an intermediate Championship, then you have a maximum pool of 30 spread, more or less evenly, between three races. That might suit horses who can’t easily be pigeonholed as stayers or speed horses, and so the introduction of the Ryanair (Festival Trophy) has made sense, although not without showing some strain on the process.

It is, however, clear that if you decide that you need another championship, that the pool of horses is too small for this to work adequately, with the result being dwindling field sizes.

This is even more stark when it comes to novice contests, with the upgrading of the National Hunt Chase making it a mini-championship and scaring away the dear old plodders for which it was invented.

Mares’ races - de facto championships whatever their graded status – also dip into the potential pool for the big races, and for years and years Cheltenham have been banging on about introducing MORE quality to the eventual detriment of many of the traditional races.

It has taken them a long time to realise that quality is nothing without quantity and the snobbish attitude that “We don’t want to be like Galway” has been getting in the way of providing a Festival that meets the needs of everyone, not just the big players.

The great appeal of jumps racing over the flat is that you don’t need to be a millionaire to enjoy success in the richest races, and some of the great stories are those of ordinary people able to stand in the same place as the O’Learys and the Riccis and the McManuses. The more Cheltenham divided its Festival into a series of sub-championship contests, the more the big owners chuckled, as such a system is designed to benefit the huge operations able to hedge their bets across a range of races.

Limited appeal

Such a scenario is only good for the power brokers, and of limited appeal either to the small trainer or owner, but to the attendee robbed of entertainment too.

Friends and regular readers know that I would love the Cheltenham Festival to embrace all that is enjoyable about jumps racing, and a greater variety of racing would be welcomed. You can’t increase quality all round, and God forbid, you aren’t going to decrease the length of the meeting now you’ve stretched it to four days, so why not enjoy some of the lesser stars of the season?

Our favourite horses aren’t always the ones with the loftiest ratings, and it doesn’t demean Cheltenham to have a bit of honest endeavour. The problem in March isn’t the number of handicaps, it’s the fact that – over hurdle in particular – the handicaps seem to cater for a narrow band of horses and looking at the early entries for the Coral Cup, Martin Pipe and County Hurdle seems the same names crop up again and again.

Why not have a 0-125 handicap hurdle or a 0-120 handicap chase? At least it would get new names on the racecards. I’m sick of the same bloody horses in the same bloody races. Give us quality first, but then give us variety.

At least the Pertemps attracts its own cohort, and new rules means that it’s now more attractive to – whisper it – triers! Let’s have more of that – handicap chases restricted to those who’ve run in a series of qualifiers, with win-and-you’re-in clauses which encourage horses to run through the season.

Of course, what the Festival really needs, and you know what I’m going to say, is something that both returns to old tradition, and breaks with recent, snobbish convention.

Something that brings a unique feel to the meeting. Something to create a hubbub in the parade ring well after it’s finished, even if it’s the last race of the day. Yes, folks, it’s time to double down on the Cheltenham Festival Selling Hurdle. You know it makes sense!