TIME TO BRUSH-UP THE CHAMPION HURDLE, PERHAPS.

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Only someone more foolish than I would say anything other than Buveur d’Air is the best hurdler around, and by more than the distance he beat Melon by. He is not, though, and perhaps never will be no matter how many Champion Hurdles he wins, which might be any number between three and eight given the talent around, ever going to be one of the great hurdlers. To be elevated into the league of Istabraq, Night Nurse, Sea Pigeon, Monksfield, Persian War and others, a horse worthy of being described as a genuine Champion hurdle contender needs to come along to challenge him and that seems as likely as Cheltenham Town football club winning the Champions League any day soon. Perhaps the Triumph Hurdle will make me eat my words, though it hasn’t it in recent years and I doubt if the novice races at the Festival are going to provide anything other than novice chasers.
I suspect the reason for the sharp decline in high-class hurdlers, both here and in Ireland, is due to two, possibly three factors. 1) The least likely is that there is greater kudos and prize money attributed to steeplechasing. The fact that Buveur d’Air initially went novice chasing rather than be campaigned over hurdles suggests this may be the case. 2) In Ireland the sport is dominated by Gordon Elliot and Willie Mullins, whilst over here it is only Nicky Henderson, seemingly, who targets the Champion Hurdle. It is perhaps not healthy for the sport, and hurdling in particular, when the wealthiest owners buy any good young horse that comes on the market, allowing that owner if he already has a good hurdler to keep one for hurdling whilst the other goes novice chasing. If the cream were to be spread amongst many trainers, and more critically many different owners, as was the case once upon a time, perhaps we would have five or six horses in the Champion Hurdle with a real chance of winning. Watch videos of Brave Inca or Hardy Eustace winning Champion Hurdles and you will see how competitive the race was in their day. 3) At the horses-in-training sales the 3 and 4-year-olds jump trainers would have bought in the past are now being exported to Hong Kong, Dubai and other exotic destinations and are lost to National Hunt. This is most likely to be the main factor in the decline.
I feel sorry for the horse that is sent abroad to be simply a number on a race-card when it could, with luck and talent, be a star of National Hunt.
How to right this sinking ship is a question and a half, though? Now I have ideas for all of racing’s ills, perceived or otherwise, and for this knotty problem my thoughts are radical, game-changing and I suspect out-of-the question. Nicky Henderson look away now for fear of a seizure.
Do away with hurdles altogether.
I have had a problem with hurdles for a long time. In all other forms of equestrian sport horses are not expected to jump a moving obstacle and yet in jump racing when a hurdle is rapped by the legs of a horse it sways forward only to return to its original position so that the following horse must jump an obstacle that is different heights during its passage forward and back. A better trap for a horse could not be better designed. To my mind this is a horse welfare issue comparable to the old upright Aintree fences which were altered for the same welfare reasons. I thought the sport was being proactive when brush hurdles were being trialled and I am perplexed as to why they are not by now widespread.
Someone correct me if I am wrong but surely brush hurdles would make the transition from hurdler to steeplechaser so much easier for both horse and rider. Yes, the world as we know it would be altered for all time if we ditched the traditional hurdle in favour of brush but with so many horses now imported from France where our type of hurdles are not used and with far fewer horses coming to jump racing from the flat is this not the ideal time to have brush hurdles on every track in the country?