abandonment & a race in need of an upgrade.

​I was intending to pen a letter to the Racing Post on the subject of abandonments when my thunder was stolen by Paul Kealy offering his criticism of the B.H.A.’s attitude towards abandoning whole meetings, when Ireland will reschedule at the earliest opportunity. He is 100% correct, as I told him in an e-mail. I am sure he was overjoyed and boastful to his colleagues that he received my approval. 
Although the odds on Ascot’s meeting this Saturday going ahead have improved with a weather forecast for above freezing temperatures from early morning onwards, it is still, I would think, shades of odds-on that the meeting will be adandoned.
The clash between Jonbon and El Fabiola has been widely anticipated for weeks yet if the big race is transferred to Cheltenham next weekend, as happened last season, the race will become the next best thing to a penalty kick for Jonbon as Willie Mullins has made clear that his horse will return home and be aimed at the Dublin Racing Festival. To be clear, without El Fabiola, the race will be a non-event, to the point that the race will not be worth I.T.V. altering their planned running order to televise the race live.
What is so stupid about scuttling the whole meeting and transferring the big race to Cheltenham next Saturday is that though the odds are against Ascot being fit to race tomorrow, the odds are greatly in favour of the racecourse being fit for purpose on Sunday. Not only that, I.T.V. will televising racing on Sunday from Lingfield, so television coverage will not be a problem. If Ireland have no problem promptly rescheduling meetings, why is it an imponderable in this country. Ascot will be all dressed-up ready to race on Saturday and yet it seems impossible to keep everything in place and merely delay proceedings for twenty-four hours.
During the months of December, January and February, would it not make sense for the ‘Premier’ meetings scheduled for a Saturday come with the provision of postponing until the Sunday if the weather should intervene? With the British weather, it is always a possibility the weather might be worse on the Sunday and racing will be skittled anyway but at least a provision to postpone for twenty-four hours increasing the odds of the meeting taking place.
Ascot might excuse abandoning the meeting rather than postponing on the grounds that catering staff may not be available or food prepared for the first day would be spoiled, creating extra expense. All eventualities, I would contend, would be easier to overcome than the whims and fancies of Mother Nature.
This is yet another example of poor leadership from the B.H.A. Horse Racing in this country is in desperate need of front-foot thinking.

Those who pine for the days of the 3-day Cheltenham Festival, who make fair comment on the over-stretching of the quality elastic band, with owners and trainers able to make choices as to which race their star horses run in, rather than the kettling of top-class horses into the Champion Hurdle, 2-mile Champion Chase or Cheltenham Gold Cup as was the case back ‘in the good old days’, seem perfectly happy with the National Hunt Chase, formerly the main race of the meeting (and the race the meeting is named after) stealing many of the top staying novices chasers from the 3-mile novice chase intended for the following season’s potential Gold Cup horses.
I used to like the ‘old’ National Hunt Chase, when it was run as a maiden chase or at least for novices that had not won before January 1st. It was a novelty, a race when virtually anything could happen and I wish Cheltenham would stage a similar race at their New Year’s Day meeting or Trials Day. But that’s fantasy thinking.
I don’t like the race anymore. It used to have 30-runners and yet now we are lucky if half-a-dozen face the starter. Amateur riders have the Kim Muir and the Foxhunters; there is no need at the sport’s premier race-meeting for there to be a third race restricted to amateurs. 
To improve the quality of the Festival I would upgrade the National Hunt Chase to a 4-mile Champion Chase, with novices receiving 7Ib from their more experienced rivals. As with the 2-mile Champion Chase, some years the pool of top-class stayers will be weak and in other years strong. 
The National Hunt season is built upon the foundation of long-distance chase. The premier race of the season is the Grand National, with the Welsh, Irish and Scottish Nationals major events on the calendar. Also, the season is peppered with regional nationals and races like the Warwick Classic. It is unreasonable for their not to be a Grade 1, 4-mile Champion Chase, with the Cheltenham Festival the obvious place to stage such a race.