Good things come to those who wait but it feels like heels need to cool more every year due to the Cheltenham Festival’s interminable countdown.
It’s supposed to be about the journey rather than the destination but not when it comes to the greatest week of the jump racing season.
The run up seems endless. Such is the relentless hype, even Willie Mullins’s assistant David Casey recently admitted to being bored having it in his ear all the time. Whatever about the puffery, former champion trainer Noel Meade pointed to a more substantial issue in how months of the season are reduced to little more than a prelude to four days.
“You have the Irish Champion Hurdle, the Irish Gold Cup and they are nearly run as trials for the festival. It is to the detriment of the sport. Cheltenham has created this monster. It seems a pity that every day you go to the races the only question seems to be will this horse or that horse go to Cheltenham?” he told Betway, before adding: “But it is the championships!”
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Former jockey Aidan Coleman agreed with the paradox, wondering if such a scenario is healthy for the sport overall. To which the obvious answer is no, it isn’t. The National Hunt season is hopelessly lopsided towards a single week that defines everything else.
Now that it’s upon us, such perspective almost invariably slips in favour of relish at what we’re about to receive.
Cheltenham exerts a grip on the broader consciousness that most other sports can only dream of. Whatever about competition fears or worry at declining attendances, next week is going to be front and centre of popular interest both here and in Britain.
It makes the festival a priceless shop window for racing to sell itself. Only the Aintree Grand National justifies comparison.
The downside of so much being pinned to a single week was underlined five years ago. Cheltenham became a lightning rod for public fury as the world slipped into pandemic.
[ Cheltenham's horsey set unmoved by some poxy little global pandemicOpens in new window ]
Foot and Mouth also intervened in 2001. Every year there’s the tightrope walked by the sport in relation to welfare and the whip. With the spotlight comes scrutiny. But it’s a bargain the sport is blessed to have.
Nevertheless, everything revolving around the festival means inevitable impacts elsewhere. Months of thin fare now morph into a glut of spring festival action, much of it counterproductively getting in the way of each other.
From the end of next week to the start of Aintree’s Grand National festival is just 19 days. A couple of weeks after that is Fairyhouse Easter. Another couple of weeks after that is Punchestown. Sprinkled into the mix too is Sandown’s season finale and the Scottish National in Ayr. This is inefficient use of racing’s biggest assets.
Pointing out how running top-class horses at both Cheltenham and Liverpool is more and more difficult, leading British trainer Dan Skelton has proposed moving the Aintree National to the end of April to become a proper culmination to the National Hunt season.
It’s a valid idea. Concerns about ground at that time of year don’t wash. Punchestown can produce safe ground. The French can produce very soft going at Auteuil in June. Skelton also reasons it works with Punchestown as some horses prefer going right-handed or vice versa.
The logistics of pulling it off though wouldn’t be easy. Sandown will hardly be jumping up and down for joy about it. Neither would Punchestown be thrilled about sharing the spotlight with the overwhelming attraction that is the National.
So, if the objective is to free up time, and rather than shuffling everything around, perhaps a more straightforward answer could be to simply move Cheltenham forward a week.
Traditionalists might be appalled at the prospect of racing’s North Star getting shifted. This is a sport that’s conservative with a very big C. Some would be better disposed to moving Christmas to New Year.
However, a Gold Cup that was run today would allow close to a four-week gap until Liverpool which would be a significant boost to connections hoping to run horses at both cross-channel meetings. It would still leave a sufficient gap back to the Dublin Racing Festival which could remain Ireland’s premier trials fixture.
As it stands, some prominent trainers are content to skip the DRF anyway, wary of Willie Mullins’s dominance there. After Brighterdaysahead romped home at Leopardstown over Christmas it was always odds-on she would go straight to Cheltenham.
Such a move would increase the chances of more top horses competing at the big three festivals of Cheltenham, Aintree and Punchestown. Sprinter Sacre memorably managed the hat-trick a dozen years ago. His sole Irish appearance created huge interest, and was a reminder of how, hard to believe as it might be right now, the game continues even after next week.
If nothing else, moving Cheltenham forward would at least lessen the seemingly endless festival run up. Wars have been fought in less time than the stretch of unending speculation and chatter about what Willie will run in what and why. It’s an annual exercise that’s thankfully almost done with again in advance of racing’s greatest showpiece.
Something for the Weekend
Callum Pritchard takes a valuable 5lbs off Meetmebythesea (1.50) in tomorrow’s novice handicap final at Sandown and that may prove a crucial factor in the outcome. So too may ground conditions that appear to be drying up all the time.
Henry De Bromhead’s team are starting to hit a bit of form again in time for Cheltenham and his Champagne Mahler (4.25) is on bottom weight for tomorrow’s big handicap chase at Gowran. Darragh O’Keeffe’s mount ran an admirable second on his last start at Fairyhouse in January.
