the sad day the 4-miler stopped being the 4-miler.

​By the tone of the comments printed in yesterday’s Racing Post by people far more educated than I, with far greater experience of real-life racing than I’ll ever be able to claim, I stand alone in my condemnation of Cheltenham’s decision to reduce the distance of the National Hunt Chase on ‘welfare grounds’, especially when it claims that by introducing a mares chase it will be improving the standard of the overall meeting.
By giving as ‘welfare considerations’ for its reason for reducing the distance of the National Hunt Chase Cheltenham has cast the first stone in what might become the struggle to save all races over a similar distance. Will in time the opposition to the Grand National demand on ‘welfare considerations’ that it too should have its distance reduced? Will Uttoxeter one day have to shorten the distance of its Midland National or Newcastle its Eider Chase?
Not only have Cheltenham given away a penalty with this strange decision but it has missed a golden opportunity to upgrade the National Hunt Chase to championship status. The Cheltenham Festival is the crowning glory of not only National Hunt in this country but I would argue racing as a whole. There is no other meeting like it in the world and as Royal Ascot has no defined championship race in its entire five days, I would suggest, even it does not rival the Cheltenham Festival. Here was an opportunity to revive what used to be the second-most important race, second only to the Grand National, of the season. The National Hunt Festival is named after the National Hunt Chase as the race has a longer lineage than the race meeting.
At its inception amateur riders ruled the sport and it was rare for a professional to win even the Grand National. The sport nowadays has changed beyond recognition to the days of Arthur Yates, Harry Brown and gallant army captains riding their own horses for the amusement of it.
For a championship meeting amateurs are adequately catered for, even if the National Hunt Chase was taken from them. They have the Kim Muir and the Foxhunters, and apart from the Martin Pipe they are eligible to ride in every other race, including the Gold Cup and Champion Hurdle. It can be argued that amateurs have more opportunities to ride winners at the Festival than the professionals.
The National Hunt Chase should be upgraded to a 4-mile Championship race. There is no such race in the calendar and given the importance of staying chases to the sport it is absurd that there is no championship 4-mile chase to make the division the equal of the 2-mile chasers and the 2 and 3-mile hurdlers.
As for which race to sacrifice for the inclusion of a mares chase? I would suggest the mares hurdle as though it is not the least classiest race, year on year it does devalue other races at the meeting by providing relative easy pickings for Messer’s Elliott and Mullins who farm the race between them since Quevega departed for greener grass.
Though I agreed with every word of Julian Muscat in today’s Racing Pot about the insanity of rewarding three-year-old races above that of the older generation, he is hopelessly wrong in his criticism of the 4-year-old handicap at the Cheltenham Festival. He may want it sacrificed in favour of the mares chase but the race draws the lesser lights away from the Triumph and the other novice hurdles. I do believe it might be a better spectacle if there were qualifying races throughout the winter but the appeal of the race is that it gives the smaller owner a chance of a runner at the festival. The Triumph Hurdle needs to be protected from lesser quality horses running simply to give owners a day out. For the Triumph to remain a true championship race it has to be restricted to the best of the juvenile hurdlers, even if this lowers the number of runners relative to the days before the inception of the 4-year-old handicap.
Personally, I would like to see the Cheltenham Festival brought forward a week, with the Imperial Cup run on what is now the Saturday after the big meeting, which alongside the Midland National would make a great day of racing. I have also advocated a ‘fifth day’ at Cheltenham, with the Saturday following the Gold Cup a ‘heath day’, as Royal Ascot used to have, allowing for the consolation races for the handicaps to be run at Cheltenham and not Kempton, a course of completely different character. This ‘heath day’ could also accommodate which ever race is removed from the festival and could be used as a trial for any race that might one day be included in the festival, as is the case with the mares chase. There might even be an argument for the inception of a new race restricted to amateurs. But only if the National Hunt Chase is upgraded as I hope and pray it will be one day.