should there be a mid-season festival over here?

​The Dublin Racing Festival is undoubtedly a success. Whether it should be built upon and expanded is another matter, though. Sometimes, as it is said, less can be more. In my eyes, they have just the right mix of races and to develop the meeting further would be to over-dilute the quality. If, and I only say if, they wanted to add a race, I would suggest a mares champion hurdle, though over what distance would be hard to determine. In fact, the impact of mares only races, as good-intentioned and perhaps as required as they are, has only served to dilute the quality of many of our top National Hunt races and any expansion on the initiative should be discouraged. But a champion hurdle for mares in late January at Leopardstown might at least help trainers and owners decide once and for all which race at the Cheltenham Festival to aim their superstar mares, rather than what we have at the moment, which is a lot of head-scratching and the scandalous neglect of what is in the best interests of the sport.
But should a similar Racing Festival be developed on our shores. My gut instinct is to say no. There would be no point clashing with the Dublin Racing Festival and any date afterwards would put it too close to Cheltenham, especially as Aintree follows in quick order. The obvious place in the calendar for such a meeting would be over the Christmas holiday period, making Kempton the racecourse to stage it.
Ireland have taken the major races that were run at the three Leopardstown meetings in the early months of the year and repackaged them, inflating the prize-money. In fact, they have not really invented any new races, just combined the best of three meetings into a two-day jamboree.
Something similar could be achieved at Kempton on Boxing Day and the day after. The problem, though, is this: the majority of the top National Hunt horses are trained in Ireland and they already have a big programme of fixtures that already attract their top chasers and hurdlers. As he did with Footpad this season, Willie Mullins might find opportunities over here for one or two of his horses, Gordon Elliott likewise, but Kempton in December, as is the case with every top British meeting except Cheltenham and the Grand National meeting at Aintree, is very unlikely to attract the best of the Irish, and without them a two-day Winter jamboree would be very thin on competitive and informative racing.
The King George would obviously be the standout race, yet even the second most prestigious staying chase in the British racing calendar regularly fails to attract the best of the Irish. This season it proved to be the most uncompetitive top-class chase for many a long year. I doubt if doubling or trebling the prize-money would make the race more desirable to the Irish. But the King George would be the principle race of any supposed Christmas Festival, and then there are the Christmas Hurdle, Desert Orchid Chase and the Feltham Novice Chase as supporting races. But after that races would need to be invented and that will lead to already established races at other courses being devalued.
The other major race of the Christmas period, the Welsh National, could never be transplanted from Chepstow, though if the Jockey Club Estates are idiotic enough to sell Kempton for housing development all options become open for discussion. And apart from the old Hennessey, there really isn’t another race in the lead-up to Christmas that would sit comfortably within a Dublin Racing Festival type meeting.
It would make more sense to develop Cheltenham’s one-day Trials Day into a more prestigious event, with every race a trial for the blue riband races at the Festival. There is already the Cotswold Chase for Gold Cup pretenders, perhaps one of the 2-mile races, the Game Spirit, for instance, could be transferred to Cheltenham to provide a trial for the 2-mile Champion Chase. And why not trial races for the Stayers Hurdle and two of the novice chases and hurdles, perhaps over 2 and 3-miles. That is seven races, which should be enough, though there might be a shout for a 4-year-old hurdle as well.
On balance I would call for Trials Day to be developed into a proper day of trials for the marquee events at the Festival. That to me would be the sensible way to go and would perhaps compliment the Dublin Racing Festival rather than be in competition with it.