flat beginning, flat ending.

​In today’s Racing Post, David Jennings makes a very good point about how the flat season traditionally fades away to a whisper. That’s the turf flat season, obviously, as flat racing in this country does not have a true beginning or any sort of end. What he did not mention was that the flat also starts with a whimper, which might be alleviated if the Lincoln Handicap featured amongst five other valuable handicaps to form some kind of national million-quid super bet, thereby announcing the start of the turf flat season with something more-akin to a bang.
Although I agreed with the premise of David Jenning’s article, he overlooked the obvious meeting to end the season – Champions Day.
I have said this before and will now repeat myself: there is very little point to Champions Day. The ‘champions’ in the title refers to the winners of varying divisions of the Qipco Championship Series, and I defy anyone to remember this year’s winners, let alone those from years gone by.
As David Jennings rightly reminded his readers; the National Hunt season finishes with top-notch races, some of which feature top-class horses, plus the race that remains in the memory of people of my vintage, the Whitbread Gold Cup that was. This flat season, which year-on-year fades away on heavy ground at Doncaster, slipped away even more quietly when Doncaster fell victim to the storms in the north of the country. Just because Doncaster traditionally starts the flat season, though not always, there is no reason why it should draw to a conclusion at Doncaster.
Of course, there is an argument that in order to sell the sport to a wider audience, very much in the manner the Breeders’ Cup is organised, Champions Day could be staged at different venues year-on-year. Why should it be solely attached to Ascot? It would provide a boost to the north of the country if it came ashore at Doncaster occasionally, with what is now the November Handicap added to the programme, as well as whatever the last Group 1 two-year-old race is called in any one year. I am quite sure Newbury, Newmarket, York or Sandown would also do the day justice.
I would favour lopping two weeks off the season, there are too many meetings anyway despite the wailings of both the racecourses and the betting industry, and finishing the season with Champions Day. I realise the purists will say that having Champions Day later in the year will, with the close proximity of the Breeders’ Cup and the big races in Australia, dilute the pool of top-quality horses available but that is the case already with Champions Day being staged prior to those international meetings.
My view on Champions Day as it is at the moment, is that it is a puffed-up, glad-rags day for the big wealthy owners to trouser ever-more prize money and which has been shoe-horned into the racing programme at the expense of all and sundry and which has failed miserably to recreate (the inspiration, I suggest, for the Champions Day concept) the feel-good factor day of A.P. McCoy’s retirement at Sandown.
Also, Champions Day compounds the stupid idea of starting the jockeys’ championship in May, disregarding the races run since the start of the season, and concluding it when there is still more than a month of turf racing to get through. Try explaining the present system to someone with little but a passing interest in racing. It’s like starting the race for the Premiership in October when the season actually begins in August and then not bothering with any games after April. At least by ending the turf season with Champions Day all the various jockey titles can be awarded on the same day and a definite line can be drawn under the season once the final race of the day is run.
Moving Champions Day back a few weeks is not like proposing changing the date of the Epsom Derby to July or Royal Ascot to August. The Grand National meeting, the Cheltenham Festival, the Derby, Royal Ascot, Glorious Goodwood etc, are blue-chip meetings of great esteem. The danger is that Champions Day will soon be considered of similar merit when it is nothing of the kind. At least as the final day of the turf season it will assume a proper and fitting date in the racing calendar.