2-mile chasers, and the wimpiness of modern trainers.

​After Altior’s facile, if somewhat concerning, victory in the Clarence House last Saturday, there was a short-lived debate on whether the race should return to being a handicap or left as easy-pickings for the best 2-mile chaser around at the time of running. As anyone who has visited this site in the past will know, I am fervently of the opinion, for the sake of the historical record as anything else, that trainers should either be enticed or persuaded to run the top horses in the occasional handicap, as was the case for their predecessors in years gone by.
The introduction of Grade 1 handicaps would not necessarily entice Nicky Henderson to subject any of his best horses to, what he would consider the unnecessary burden, giving weight to horses who might put it up to Altior, Might Bite, etc., though we will never know until the innovation is trialled. Once upon a time the Mackeson Gold Cup, the first big handicap chase of the season, was run over 2-miles, and as top 2-mile chase handicaps are in short supply throughout the season I would welcome the race, whoever might be the sponsor next season, reverting to the minimum distance.
There are 4 races for the likes of Altior up till the Champion 2-mile Chase – the Tingle Creek, the Desert Orchid, the Clarence House and the Game Spirit – the third named being the one I would change to a Grade 1 handicap. I would also have a sprinkling of ordinary yet moderately valuable 2-mile chases throughout the season, starting, as I have already suggested, by reverting the old Mackeson to 2-miles. The Grand Annual is an important race to win but only because it forms part of the Cheltenham Festival, yet it seems to have assumed a gravitas undeserving of the quality of horse it attracts solely because there is not really a race to rival it throughout the season. Making the Clarence House a Grade 1 handicap would provide a focus for trainers of good 2-mile chasers, with the Game Spirit in the programme for horses considered too put-upon by the handicapper to be risked at Ascot.
To continue on the topic of 2-mile chasers and going on to the wimpiness of present-day trainers, in the excellent series on the best 2-mile chasers in the Racing Post, todays offerings were two of the most remarkable horses ever to grace the turf and an eye-opener to those who believe a horse has only one distance it can excel at.
Crisp and Fortria did things that if suggested he should think about doing the same Nicky Henderson would have sleepless nights and a perpetual nervous tick.
On only his second run in this country Crisp won the 2-mile Champion Chase by 25-lengths. But he wasn’t sent from Australia to win 2-mile chases but to win the Grand National and didn’t bloody nearly pull it off. It was, in my opinion, and notwithstanding the small fact that he didn’t actually win, the greatest performance of my lifetime, and I doubt I’ll see the likes of it again if I should break the world record for not dying. He carried 12-stone and gave 23lbs to Red Rum, which, as subsequent history was to prove, was an impossible concession. Yet he nearly achieved the impossible.
Fortria was as equally versatile. He won two 2-mile Champion Chases and twice won the Mackeson, yet he also finished second twice in the Gold Cup, beaten by horses of the magnitude of Mandarin and Mill House. Was he beaten for stamina? Well, his 1961 success, carrying 12-stone, in the Irish Grand National suggests not.
The question I now raise is this: are todays horses fundamentally different to their forebears? Tom Dreaper, trainer of Fortria, also won the Champion 2-mile Chase and Irish Grand National with Flyingbolt.
My argument is that we will never know whether Sprinter Sacre or Altior, or even Dunkirk or Badsworth Boy, is the best 2-mile chaser ever to race because their victories were in races basically framed for their convenience. Altior, for instance, is by far, with the possible exception of Un De Sceaux, though he is only his better by a lesser margin, the best 2-mile chaser around and as such, given he is also a bombproof jumper, should always win level-weight contests. In the past the likes of Fortria would win top-class handicaps giving away lumps of weight and his career, as it was others, was not cut short by the hardship.
A good few years ago Charlie Mann ran his stalwart 2-mile chaser Celibate in the Grand National. On all known form he should have pulled up around the 3-mile mark or before. Yet he finished, and not last or miles behind either.
You cannot expect Nicky Henderson to run Altior in handicaps just to find-out his limitations when there are so many easy pots to pick up prior to Cheltenham. But the race-planners might at least amend the 2-mile programme to try to entice him once-a-season to give it ago. Or our modern-day horses not as robust as the Tom Dreaper horses of the fifties and sixties? Or is there something lacking in the way horses are trained today that takes away the robustness from their constitution?
Also featured in the top 2-mile chasers was Barnbrook Again who was trained by that courageous and masterful trainer David Elsworth. When tried over 3-miles in the King George, to finish second to his superstar stable-mate Desert Orchid, Elsworth was asked if lack of stamina was the cause of Barnbrook’s defeat. “Well,” said the maestro. “He stayed better than all those he beat.”
Will Altior stay 3-miles? Of course he will. The real question is will he be as formidable?