no to aintree, mares, cheltenham must listen and learn, false starts & WHITE PADDING.

​If you were to ask my opinion on whether Inothewayurthinkin will take part in the Aintree National this season, I would answer no and I hope not. Firstly, J.P.’s other homebred Gold Cup winner, Synchronise, attempted the Gold Cup/National double and lost his life whilst running loose after falling quite early in the race. That experience will, I believe, sway J.P., given he has at least 4 other fancied contenders for the race, to taking a cautionary approach when making his decision. Also, Inothewayurthinkin, is only a seven-year-old; he has his whole life ahead of him and with few obvious contenders to challenge him for his Gold Cup crown next season, the Aintree National would be one race too early in what has the potential to become a glorious equine career.

The damned Mares Hurdle, will someone please rid me of this damnable and unnecessary race at the Festival? Those who take this sort of decision at Cheltenham should listen to the dissenters and learn how to take the right advice. But they should not take the knee-jerk decision to abandon the race altogether but reassign it to ‘Trials Day’ and boost it to championship status, thereby allowing the top mares to contest a Champion Mares Hurdle and the Champion Hurdle itself.
Those people championing the mares’ series of races, rightly claiming it has boosted the profile of mares and the breeding of mares, should be listened to. The only thing wrong with the Mares Hurdle is it being staged at the Cheltenham Festival where it is harmful to the competitiveness and reputation of the Champion Hurdle. The Cheltenham Festival should be all about the best taking on the best to ensure, as far as the sporting fates will allow, the true champions of any one year. To me, the Mares Novice Hurdle is a great success, though the Mares Chase is perhaps the worst race over the 4-days, and I would be in favour of the present Mares Hurdle becoming a limited handicap rather than a Grade 2.

Where Cheltenham must learn and listen, and I believe Guy Lavender does not require my advice on this matter, I will give it anyway, is that if the customer tells him that from an admission point of view Cheltenham is poor value for money, it must be accepted as fact and not a general moan. I would suggest raising admission prices a smidge for its lesser meetings, coupled with a bonus for Festival-goers of cheaper tickets for the Festival if they have attended 3 or more Cheltenham meetings during the season. Hotel prices are not in the remit of Cheltenham racecourse and the cost-of-living crisis is not of Cheltenham’s doing. Cheltenham can only manage their own manageables and it should not be blamed for the consequences of government decisions. It is unfair to compare Cheltenham 2025 with Cheltenham of the boom years for the country.

False starts are an embarrassment to the sport and between now and the Aintree National meeting there must be an emergency meeting with jockeys, trainers’ and starters to work out a more manageable procedure for starting a horse race. Firstly, decide whether the tape is necessary. Work-out a practical distance the horses must be from the starter and once the flag is raised, the jockey should be both responsible for where he or she lines-up and to be facing in the right direction. Some horses need to race mid-division or out the back. So, there is no need for all horses to be in a straight line. National Hunt is being confused with the flat where an equal break from the stalls is nearly always vital.

Without any data to prove me right or wrong, I believe the introduction of white padding to steeplechase fences is a wonderful gain for the sport as there are fewer fallers, even at the hurly-burly of the Cheltenham Festival. I am not so certain, though, about the white padded hurdles. I am confident they are safer than what went before as the white padding is more visible to the horse, as science suggested it would be, though it has not remedied the problem of the swinging hurdle, part of the reason Constitution Hill fell. For our sport to be safer for the horses who compete, it must be debated if we should move towards the sort of hurdle used in France which is more akin to a ‘baby’ steeplechase fence.
As horses should, in principle, as they age, proceed from hurdles to steeplechase fences, with all our most prestigious National Hunt races being steeplechases, it would be make for a better technique if young horses were taught to jump as if it is a matter-of-fact that they will one day progress to a life jumping steeplechase fences. I think it should at least be trialled for a couple of seasons, alongside the more familiar British and Irish-style hurdle, with a couple of racecourses using the French-style hurdle and dispensing with the more familiar potential-to-swing – name me another equine sport where a horse is required to jump a moving object - hurdle. Data, we need data, even if it turns out to be negative data.