WELL, Santa was rather good to us, wasn’t he?

A host of top-class jumpers in the Christmas action and happily the master of Closutton re-thought his plans and sent two of his stars to Kempton to take on strong rivals rather than the softly, softly, don’t meet until Cheltenham path often taken.

However, he took two punches in the gut from the Henderson team with Constitution Hill and Sir Gino, so it’s game on next time. The only annoying lines from the Christmas action were the ‘straight to Cheltenham’ for novices The Jukebox Man, The New Lion and Potters Charm.

And then we had Brighterdaysahead dominate the Grade 1 Neville Hotels Hurdle, thrashing a probably below par State Man, but setting her on an intriguing Champion Hurdle path, but… the kick in the teeth was the revelation that the owners prefer the Mares Hurdle as a Festival target.

Now, I’ve always felt the Mares Hurdle deserved its Grade 1 position on the Festival card. But, if the top mares continually take its easier option, public opinion will not be so favourable and that could get worse, and even force a change in the race conditions.

The race was created to give mares a Festival target, to be an end aim in their progression to top level, following the addition of more mares races in the programme, with the aim to boost their sales value and improve breeding prospects.

You can excuse Honeysuckle going to the Mares Hurdle first, she had only run against mares up to that. She established herself and then won the Champion Hurdle the two following years. Annie Power too went on to the Champion Hurdle and had tried the Stayers. Winning the Mares Hurdle does nothing further for Brighterdaysahead, since she is likely to go chasing.

Annie Power wins the Champion Hurdle \ Healy Racing

Eddie O’Leary, when speaking on the Nick Luck podcast, defended the decision. “They are on about how the French horses are so good… The French horses are so good, because the French broodmares are so good… we have to support the mares series.”

It’s hard to get a definite handle on that, when the parameters are so vague. There are only nine Grade 1 races over jumps in France, only 11 Grade 2s, and many of those are for three and four-year-olds. While you can be sure that the French begin jumping earlier, the quality of a winner is much less definable.

How many races

And you can counter with how many races did you win, Matnie? The dam of Brighterdaysahead, and probably the best NH broodmare around, never raced.

Yes, her dam did win for the Pipes and David Johnson, but lots of good mares raced before this last decade, Willie Mullins’ first Cheltenham winner was a mare in Tourist Attraction and no one was looking to France in 2003 and saying how good these horses are, we need to get more of them here.

The Mares Hurdle has been there since 2008, you can argue it’s well-established for its purpose now, as are mares-only races, but it simply should not be the target of a mare who has already taken on geldings and beaten a Champion Hurdle contender to win a top Grade 1. A win would add nothing to Brighterdaysahead’s profile. When she is intended to go chasing, it would be a terrible shame not to give her a crack at the Champion Hurdle first. Imagine the interest if she won and went chasing with the Gold Cup as her ultimate aim?

And, the Mares Hurdle might be no cakewalk – Willie still has Kargese to come out and Brighterdaysahead was odds-on when she was beaten in the Festival’s Ryanair Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle.

In every aspect of sport, if you excel, you go to the next level. You aim for the top. The Mares Hurdle is not the top for a mare who has already won a Grade 1, beating top geldings.

We have seen this year how there is a racing opinion and a public opinion and the latter is much more vocal. Not that M O’Leary will be swayed by public opinion!