THE SHERGAR CUP.

​I like the Shergar Cup, and not only because it keeps alive the name of a great horse and the mystery of its sad fate. I have proposed a National Hunt version for the second day of the King George meeting at Kempton over the Christmas period, the Flyingbolt Challenge or Desert Orchid Cup.
The Shergar Cup, now it has proved such a success with the public, if tinkered with or even revolutionised, has the potential to do great things for flat racing. Some people, I know, people who lack my foresight, poo-pooh the event, lamenting the quality of horses participating and the uncompetitiveness nature of some of the races. The number and diversity of the crowd drawn to Ascot for this one-off team championship tells you all you need to know about its popularity and why its detractors are wrong to criticise. The Shergar Cup is a valued variation to the normal racing product as though the races are competitive there is an element of fun contained within the format. And of course, it is fascinating for the casual racegoer and form expert alike to judge the Rest-of-the-World riders against the better-known riders and to see how ‘the girls’ get on against them. It is a day of racing where the class of horse is unimportant as the format allows the owners of moderate horses the opportunity to win a nice pot and at the end of the day it leaves the spectator wanting a seventh or eighth race. Well, it does me.
I am sure there is an expense involved in persuading, if they need persuasion, the foreign riders to come to the party and I am sure there is other expenditure involved. I feel, though, that the six race-card, of which any one jockey can only ride in five races, is limiting and perhaps does not give the foreign riders a true feel for the British racing experience. Countries around the world put on similar events, when the British riders are the exotic species, and I think as the inventor and regulator of this sport we could do the job with a little more pizazz and imagination.
How about a format along these lines? Two races per day throughout the week leading up to the six races at Ascot. This would allow the foreign jockeys to experience the different types of racecourses they would be unused to in their own countries. It would also allow them to pick up spare rides and make connections that might be useful to them in the years ahead. These extra ten races need not have similar prize money to the six races at Ascot, though they would greatly enhance the racing at any of the venues chosen to host the Shergar Cup races and might boost attendance. This format might also allow the team numbers to be upped to four per team, with the top three riders per team taking part on the final day, giving a little extra spice to every race even within each team.
Or: the two races per day as before but contested by three different teams – for example a team of northern-based jockeys, a team of southern-based jockeys and a team of apprentices – with the winning team making up a fifth team at Ascot on the Saturday.
Logistically my idea might be challenging to implement, as I have it in my mind that the twelve or sixteen jockeys involved could be bussed as a group from course to course, with interviews and promotion on local television and radio. The more celebrated jockeys, of course, with commitments to their main employers may not wish to commit to what might be an arduous week during the most arduous part of the season. Yet for someone, say, straining to become champion jockey, it could be seen that to take part in the event gives them the opportunity for guaranteed rides in races that might not be greatly competitive and to get on horses they would not otherwise ride. And again, making new connections.
The Shergar Cup is now proven as a crowd-puller and is an ideal vehicle to take our sport to the people, for the foreign jockeys to promote racing in their own countries, and for the powers-that-be to market and promote horse racing to a wide variety of people. At the moment the Shergar Cup is a one-off event that takes place on a quiet weekend between two big Festivals. With a little imagination and flair, it could be far more than an idiosyncratic filler in the summer flat racing programme.