WE’ve made it though another racing year that had plenty of hurdles to overcome, on and off the track.
Aidan O’Brien held his flat dominance, though three of our classics went to Britain. Over jumps, the Irish success was amazing. When you put it into words, it really sinks in. Irish stables won the King George, the Champion Hurdle, the Champion Chase, the Stayers’ Hurdle, the Gold Cup, the Grand National, the Aintree Hurdle, the Scottish Grand National, the bet365 Gold Cup, all four Grade 1 novice hurdles and the Champion Bumper at the Festival, as well as two of the three Grade novice chases.
Willie Mullins was rightly lauded. But, of course, that didn’t sit perfectly in the wider picture and HRI’s effort to help the smaller trainers with restricted trainer races did not go down that well.
Of course, the whole game begins with the breeders, often the more silent section of racing. The huge run of success of young, French-bred horses, principally campaigned by Mullins and Elliott, brought forth the second big HRI offering at the end of the season. Again, there were divided opinions and a degree of negative comments.
That fuss about academy hurdles and the need to get NH horses jumping as three-year-olds brought back a quote from my much younger racing days.
When in 1974, Brown Lad won the Sun Alliance Novices’ Hurdle at the age of eight, his trainer Paddy Osborne was asked why his horse took so long to reach the racecourse. He replied: “Shure, we couldn’t catch him until now.”
Times change and by the 2000s, when French-bred Master Minded swaggered in at just five years old and left the reigning champion two-miler Voy Por Ustedes 19 lengths in his wake at Cheltenham in the 2008 Queen Mother Champion Chase, it began to herald a new era.
This decade, the French influx has seen a massive increase.
At the same time, the better Irish sires have not done too badly at the recent Cheltenhams. If we take the Festival as a marker - and who doesn’t – this was the first year that Walk In The Park moved into the top ranks at the meeting.
Ignoring Timos and Denham Red, who have one individual standout horse, Flemensfirth, Shantou and Yeats were to the fore in 2024.
Shantou, Yeats, and Fame And Glory were among the top earners in 2023. And in 2022 it was Yeats, Jeremy and Fame And Glory who were among the sires in the top bracket of Festival successes. The problem seems to be who will succeed them?
National Hunt racing is a conundrum that generally defies logic. The successful French breeding appears random. Champions emerge from all sorts of sires. Kauto Star proved that – Timos got Galopin Des Champs and little else.
No one heard of the Polish-bred Tunis a year ago, nor his German sire Estejo. Now he has a talking horse in Kawaboomga and a point-to-point winner, Kovanis changing hands for £330,000
And let’s look at one of the most exciting young horses – enter Majborough. This time last year, if you said the union of a Japanese-bred son of Deep Impact with a fairly elderly (15), unraced, French-bred mare would produce one of the most exciting jumpers … too much Christmas booze taken! Now his sire Martinborough joins the Irish NH stallion ranks.
Random success
But you do wonder at the constant rush, on the back of one, possibly random successful season, to combat the French success by immediately importing stallions from France who would have little to recommend them before their progeny ran. But the breeders and the buyers seem to lap it up.
The mares’ programme was expanded so we could breed from better quality mares, who had shown ability over jumps. Enter last season’s Grade 1 winners Ballyburn and Grey Dawning, from unraced mares. Nothing changed there.
While all the talk is of the need to start horses jumping younger, in the longer picture, if we do so, will we have horses coming to their career end by eight?
The lack of longevity in jumping horses affects all aspects of racing including public engagement. It is the punter who ultimately funds all stakeholders including the stallion owner, breeder, producer, and racehorse owner.
Horses retiring early decreases public engagement. Kauto Star, though he is an exception to most rules, won the King George from the best around as a rising 12-year-old. You wont see compete that long nowadays.
On the sport horse side, age is less of a barrier to success, Eventing gold medallist Chipmunk is 16. In show jumping gold medallist Checker 47 is 14, as is Beauville Z who won bronze in Paris.
And let’s not say that elite jumps horses are asked tougher questions than a top show jumper. Today’s top jumpers are asked to give their full effort probably no more than five times in six months - some run a lot less frequently.
Little effect
The junior hurdles seem to have little success so far in finding quality younger British horses coming through.
Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Do we want longevity or precocity?
This might be even more of an issue for the sport than trying to curtail the success at the top because the greatest threat to racing is an apathetic audience.
Ascot had two four-runner chases last Friday. Haydock had a two-runner novice chase on Saturday and three of the four runners in Ascot’s graduation chase on Saturday were Irish-trained.
It’s not the biggest news of the month but the renewal of the Champions Full Gallop series on ITV is good, although it needs change and it needs stories, many of which, it they try to look deep enough, could come from breeders.
The academy hurdle experiment seems to have many sensible people engaged so we’ll see how it progresses over a few seasons. But we need familiar horses at the other end of the scale too.
IT’S all pulses racing on Thursday morning and that’s not just because of overindulgence the day before. The Christmas racing seems to be offering up a terrific concert of all the stars performing.
Kempton takes centre stage first with the two Grade 1s and the King George looks a fascinating race.
If you told anyone this time last season that, after all the excellent novice chase wins at Cheltenham, that a horse, who at that time had finished second, beaten six and a half lengths by a Mullins odds-on favourite in a four-runner Grade 3 novice chase at Navan, would be favourite for the King George, you’d be sent to join the Monster Raving Loony Party. But then, no one expected Hewick to win it, a month out from the race last year. But so it is, and based on his Grade 1 Punchestown win last spring and his fast-finishing second in the Durkan Chase last month, Spillane’s Tower is a worthy King George favourite.
With pace in the race and the ground in his favour, he seems to have all the boxes ticked.
Everyone would take delight in a Jimmy Mangan big win but I feel this is a stern test and perhaps the value horse of the race is L’Homme Presse.
His stable and rider are in form, he goes on soft, despite unseating at the last in this race two seasons ago. He is a neat jumper, and this distance probably suits him best and he might have had a rushed prep into the Gold Cup last season.