the damned mares hurdle at the festival.

​Henry de Bromhead’s statement that he might target Honeysuckle at the Mares Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival is a body blow for the sport. He has not positively said that the mare will not run in the Champion Hurdle but the implication is that he is seriously considering ducking the mouth-watering dual with Constitution Hill we were so keenly anticipating.
What is most frustrating about this bombshell is that the trainer, though disappointed the mare lost her unbeaten record, was encouraged by her performance, believing, as I do, that she may have run better in defeat in this season’s Hattons Grace than in any of her previous three victories in the race. If that is the case, and there is nothing deep-seatedly amiss with the mare, the indication must be that Honeysuckle is at the very least as good as ever, and will make a great leap-forward in fitness come the Irish Champion Hurdle in early February, or perhaps even a smidgen better than seasons past.
As I have said dozens of times, the owners and trainers of the top horses, flat and N.H., have a responsibility to the sport that feeds them and pouring cold water on all our expectations represents a disregard for the racing public and the sport.
The problem here, of course, is that damned Mares Hurdle. When the debate of the five-day Festival raged, the chief reason put forward by its detractors was the dumbing down on the spectacle of the best horses running against each other as owners and trainers sought to find easier opportunities of having a winner at the Festival. And, of course, the Cheltenham executive encourage the behaviour by allowing the best horses to run in lesser races. The conditions of the Mares Hurdle should exclude horses of Honeysuckle’s rating from running in the race, so to take away the temptation of pot-hunting by trainers and owners.
All we can hope is that Honeysuckle routs the opposition in the Irish Champion Hurdle and thereby forcing her connections to stick with plan A. She is the only horse capable of beating Constitution Hill or at the very least making a race of it with him. Without her, Constitution Hill will start a 1 to 4 on chance, making the race one of the most uncompetitive in its history.

Racing politics is very similar, it seems, to what comes out of Whitehall. The case for Friday/Saturday meetings in winter to change to Saturday/Sunday is logical and, to my thinking, unarguable. Those in the racing media who slanted the story by saying a) that a meeting set for the Friday should not be sacrificed for the sake of the Saturday or b) that the Saturday card might have needed to be abandoned even if the Friday had been sacrificed, were guilty of sleight-of-hand journalism. The point Richard Hoiles made, and one that I fully endorse, is that Saturday is by far the more important day’s racing to the sport than either a Friday or Sunday and that corporate business should not come before what is best for the sport itself. For the long-term good of the sport, we need young people attending race-meetings and that is more likely on the Sunday than a school day like a Friday. There is so much backward thinking holding the sport to ransom, so much holding tight to the strings of what’s gone before and ignoring what works in the sport’s favour in other countries, that it is almost as if certain people would rather go down with the ship than change course and set sail for new horizons.
And nothing exemplifies leadership-by-chance leadership than the fiasco that is going to be the new whip guide-lines. Why the jockeys have left it so late to air their grievances on the matter is a question only they can answer. And why the P.J.A., of course, were so in favour of the new guidelines when they were first announced is another question in need of an answer. Why the B.H.A. thought it sensible to have the bedding-in period so close to the Cheltenham Festival is an example of the sort of ignorant decision-making that holds the sport to ridicule. Of course, now the jockeys have shown their hand, the guide-lines will be put on the back-burner until the summer, of that I am certain.
I never expected my suggestion of ‘one hit and that’s it’ to be adopted, though in time it will become an option, but I did hope that whatever the options were they would all be trialled for set periods, as would happen in any scientific trial. Then, everyone would know which set of guide-lines worked best for the majority.
Another question in need of an answer is how much weight did Tom Scudamore and P.J. McDonald’s opinions carry on the Steering Committee. Not much, I would guess.