the quiet time of january.

​Unlike the flat which starts with a whimper and tales off into an echo of its beginning, the National Hunt season has a rhythm that has hardly altered down the decades of my life. Summer jumping keeps the sport ticking over, providing income for hard-up jockeys and trainers and diversion for people like me, jumping enthusiasts, followed in October by a scattering of races – not enough for my liking – to encourage the better-class horses into the limelight of public scrutiny and then come November and December it is the rat-a-tat-tat of a major race every weekend, culminating with the King George on Boxing Day and the Welsh National the following day.
With the exception of the Betfair Chase, which I believe only dilutes the quality of such races as the Ladbroke Trophy and in most seasons, though perhaps not this season, the King George, there is little to be critical of in the race programming.
February, too, is well-formed, with the major races, mostly handicaps interlinking with Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup trials, charting a reasoned passageway to the holiest of racing festivals at Cheltenham. January, though, is a bit of a damp squib as far as I am concerned. January has no highlight, with Trials Day at Cheltenham at the end of the month more of a lighting of a beacon for what is to be looked forward to in March rather than a Winter centrepiece in itself.
Now, it is one thing to come up with an idea and something entirely more troublesome is to come up with the finance to bring the bright spark of well-intentioned flair to fruition. But I am an ideas man; I am not a man to be trusted with either financial matters or power tools. But January needs a boost and whether the B.H.A. has noticed it or not, it is my intention to provide the debate.
There are two races completely missing from the racing programme: a big money 2-mile handicap chase and a 4-mile championship chase. I am excluding the Grand Annual as that, although any trainer, owner or jockey, would love to win the race, it is only a side-dish to the meatier fare on offer at the Festival.
I used to argue that Cheltenham’s first big handicap chase of the season should be over 2-miles and not half-a-mile longer. I no longer think that. Though I contend that the race that used to be the Whitbread at Sandown, given that the end of the season has staying chases by the cart-load – Grand National, Irish National, Midland National, Scottish National etc – in this day and age the season’s finale would attract a better class of horse if it was a 2-mile 0-150 handicap.
But I digress. Last Saturday there was the Warwick Classic Chase as the feature race. Now, I recognise that January can have 4 or 5 Saturdays in it but I don’t think the number of Saturdays in the month is an obstacle to the idea of a 2-mile handicap chase. I personally would like to see such a race at Newbury as for one of the best racecourses in the country/world it does not have enough major races either on the flat or over jumps. I see no reason why the Mandarin Chase meeting could not be held in the second week of January rather than December. The Mandarin, which I would restrict to novices, would make an excellent and valuable accompaniment to the race I propose.
The 4-mile Championship Chase is a pet-idea of mine. When I proposed the idea to Sandown as a double-header with the Tingle Creek they poo-pooed it with barely concealed contempt, telling me they had big plans for the London National. This was nearly 10-years ago and the London National remains an anonymous regional long-distance chase.
It is my contention that this country’s most popular races are the Aintree Grand National, followed by the Nationals of Wales and Scotland and of course the Gold Cup, with regional nationals gaining popularity all the time. The sport was constructed upon steeplechases for staying-type horses. Until the early 1950’s, unlikely as it might seem, the main race at the Cheltenham Festival was the 4-mile National Hunt Chase. And it is not like the popularity of the staying chaser has waned. Yet there is no conditions chase, outside of the National Hunt Chase, in the entire race programme. Such a race would provide, especially in January, an attractive proposition to trainers with staying chasers that are burdened by huge weights in races like the Welsh and Scottish Nationals but who are not classy enough for the Gold Cup and other conditions chases. Yala Enki comes to mind and better-class horses such as Santini and Native River.
In some years a 4-mile Championship Chase might not be a strong affair, something that can be said of the 2-mile Champion Chase, a race when it was first mooted was thought by critics to be unnecessary as it might be a boring spectacle. In those times, steeplechasing was all about the stayer.
So, there are my 2 ideas to sexy-up January. All that is needed now is for the B.H.A. to think-up the same idea, find a sponsor, rejig the race-programme and for owners and trainers to endorse the races with quality entries. Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy. Yes, it will never happen.