Sunday, November 25, 2007

NO TIME FOR HAND-WRINGING AS OWNER POTTS THE QUESTION

If the victories of Spot Thedifference and Katie Walsh on the Friday of the Open meeting principally served to remind us of the magic and romance that Cheltenham can still give rise to, and if the Sunday reaffirmed that the oft-maligned drainage work on the course still isn’t quite so zealous that heavy or waterlogged ground cannot occur, then the Saturday in between reminded us above all else – and in the most brutal way possible - that the innate perils the course can have in store for horse and rider are still very much evident.

The deaths of the Paul Nicholls pair of Willyanwoody in the novices’ chase and Granit Jack in the feature Paddy Power Gold Cup, both at the second last fence on the Old Course, have arguably generated more column inches outside of the trade papers than any other fatalities in a jumps race since the double-figure tally at HQ during the 2006 Festival some 20 months previously. And to a large extent that should not surprise; these were big enough profile Saturday afternoon contests over an Old Course which welcomes Channel 4 cameras to six of its seven race days each season. The challenge it poses is conspicuously familiar even to just the weekend television viewer.

With that higher profile come greater pronouncements from a greater number of quarters on the suitability, or otherwise, of the challenge than one might expect in the light of a fatality in a selling hurdle at Towcester. The sources of the most trenchant arguments both for and against the jumping of the offending obstacle on the Old Course are easy enough to guess at; and whilst the tone of the headlines on Animal Aid’s website (Cheltenham as a whole is described as "notorious", and clerk of the course Simon Cliasse (sic) as having dismissed the fatalities as "bad luck") is little over which supporters of the sport can hold much sway, I have found it hard not to be just a touch disappointed by the response of the majority of owners, trainers and jockeys (and indeed certain columnists) in the intervening few days.

The blunt, unequivocal recourse to the maxim of “that’s racing” with which messrs Henderson, Hobbs and McCoy’s responses in the Racing Post earlier this week were shot through (and one can only be guided by how accurately those replies were committed to print), did reek a little too much of a collective whitewashing over the whole affair of the sort that jumps racing can increasingly ill afford. Exhibiting rather more - not contrition, exactly, but perhaps more acknowledgement that Saturday's events would not have looked especially good to the outside world, might have been a smarter strategy. Whilst Paul Nicholls admitted to a large degree of soul-searching over the loss of two of his string at Cheltenham in his Post column yesterday, and unequivocally stated that something needs to be done about the offending obstacle, Paddy Brennan alone of those interviewed in the Post’s piece earlier in the week appeared alive to any “outside looking in” sensibilities.

Ultimately, if racing's participants and proponents are slow, or unwilling, to adopt a wider view of the public image of the sport (good and bad), then it can have little quarrel when its opponents wantonly choose not to, either.

Some cries of overreaction have inevitably sprung from the lips of the most fervent defenders of the Old Course’s current, long-established configuration. In so far as the course had not suddenly become any more intrinsically dangerous overnight prior to last Saturday’s brace of fatalities, they are entitled to those cries. However, whilst the topography of the course and the stiffness of the obstacles have altered relatively little over time (with just small modifications to each), the way it is ridden, and on what sort of horse, both have to larger extents.

Gone are the days when big fields would hack round for the first half of a handicap even of the magnitude of the Paddy Power; one can be assured of end-to-end gallops in such races more often than not nowadays, with the twin concerns of travelling at speed yet being run ragged enough for mistakes to occur late on both very much an issue. And the profile of the horses who contest these races is not quite what it was previously, either, Granit Jack being just one of so many French imports that would have faced no slope even halfway comparable to the downhill run at Prestbury Park during their earlier careers at Auteuil, Enghien or elsewhere.

All the more reason, therefore, for the connections of such animals intended for running in such frenetic races to assume greater responsibility in ensuring their charges are suitably equipped for the task in hand.

Preparing a horse for a specific test by simulating the conditions he or she will most likely face there as closely as possible is common practice ahead of races such as the Grand National, where connections take to constructing giant spruce practice fences at home. Notwithstanding the more conventional nature of the obstacles there, it is similarly surely in the best interests of all trainers with Cheltenham aspirants to have a simulation of that course permanently in situ.

Having an uphill gallop is seen as such a prerequisite of any even halfway serious jumps operation nowadays, and without being too flippant about things, any hill equipped with an uphill stretch automatically comes with a downhill one included as well. Some trainers, including the aforementioned Nicky Henderson, do indeed maintain set-ups that typically mimic the third, second and last fences at Cheltenham and the runs between them. Whilst it is implausible at this remove to think that pressure could be brought to bear to compel all top-flight trainers to follow suit mandatorily, any continued refusal to do so with Cheltenham-bound horses could be argued to constitute as much of a dereliction of duty as not schooling them at all.

***

With most of the press, action groups and racing people having not otherwise done so, it has fallen upon the brighter racing minds lurking on the internet forum TRF (visit www.theracingforum.co.uk) to provide some light and shade on the matter of what to do with the Old course in general and two out in particular; with the fearless and admirable Lydia Hislop of the Times providing both encouragement for debate, and the means by which to represent the best ideas emanating from that debate in the mainstream sports press.

A rough estimate would suggest at least two-thirds of the contributors to the debate on TRF favour some degree of modification to the Old Course at Cheltenham, although at the same time there has been a ready consensus that any such modification should ideally not result in the significant emasculation of that course and its challenge. On both counts, and several more that result from it, the idea of professional punter and “Golden Anorak Racing Club” owner Alan Potts has rightly met with a great deal of support.

Posting on TRF just a few hours after the demise of Granit Jack, Potts observed;

"Cheltenham currently stage 16 days racing each season between October and the end of April, far fewer than many smaller country tracks. So why do they need two separate courses? Rather than fiddling with positioning of the second last on the Old Course, simply move all chases at Cheltenham to the New Course. The fences could be made much wider and dolled off to provide fresh ground as necessary and we'd have a much better and fairer track with a longer home straight and an easier bend into that straight. Then run all the hurdle races on the current Old Course, which would allow Cheltenham to move the hurdles across the full width of the track to provide fresh ground. In effect, hurdle races would use the inner loop, chases the outer loop at all meetings. As a useful by product, this would also do away with the hurdle races on the New Course, with the very long run from the second last that is equally unsatisfactory for championship races”.

The response from the course to Potts’ proposal has been open and receptive, helped no doubt to a degree by his standing as a bastion of common sense and good ideas where races and race-planning matters are concerned (he can realistically lay claim to having been the progenitor of the idea to run a mares’ race at the Cheltenham Festival, for example). Barriers to the possible implementation of the model have been identified, however, managing Director Edward Gillespie’s primary concern lying with the demands it would place on course husbandry thereafter.

With both the Old and New Course (as well as the cross-country infield) effectively being in permanent use, financial and natural demands on watering could conceivably double. This writer is not sure how insurmountable a barrier that need prove – the meeting or matching of the costs of the additional watering (if it is required) by the BHA or whoever else would seem a small price to pay in the scheme of things if it helps to project the best possible image of a well-tended, infinitely versatile racecourse.

Whether or not the idea of moving chases to one course and hurdles to the other en bloc does ultimately prove too radical, there has been no shortage of other suggestions on what should or should not be sited on the Old Course’s downhill stretch. Another owner, Mr A S Helaissi (Dinarius, Gardasee and recent juvenile hurdle winner Lemon Silk), wondered whether the positioning of a smaller obstacle in place of two out would be a positive step towards lowering the attrition rate, but whilst not decrying the idea completely, this writer would tentatively suggest it may not.

If the maxim of "speed kills" is held to be true. I'd proffer that there are far more terrible accidents at this fence compared to the fence at the bottom of Plumpton's not insubstantial downhill run. Whilst that particular obstacle is admittedly not especially tricky in and of itself, were a stiffer one put in its place the attrition rate would most likely rise little, if at all, simply due to the absence of animals approaching it at Championship pace at the Sussex venue. Conversely, anything which could permit horses travelling down the whole of Cheltenham's hill even faster than they already do really runs the risk of inviting yet further high-speed, potentially lethal, spillages.

A further suggestion came from respected TRF poster Grasshopper, who proposed the addition of another fence in between the third and second last. That would thereby create something akin to the Railway Fences at Sandown – namely three obstacles taken in rapid succession which would both provide more of a spectacle, whilst at the same time taking a decisive edge off the remaining competitors’ speed.

The distances of races and positions of fences on the Old Course are such that there would be numerous candidates for a fence to be removed from its present site to that proposed by Grasshopper with no addition to or subtraction from the number of obstacles jumped during a race – this writer’s personal preference would be to re-site either the fence taken immediately after the winning post, or else the fourth in the back straight (for all that that would then mean two ditches are taken in succession).

***

The bottom line is that how seriously one regards the need to change the Old Course in general, and / or two out in particular, depends on how much one regards as a fair challenge a fence at which horses can sprawl on landing and exit the contest even having jumped it entirely soundly. Potts was emphatic in a subsequent post on TRF that no fence on any course should be designed or intended to produce fallers, which should emphatically not be the purpose of steeplechasing.

Most (but not all) of the respondees on that forum certainly concur, and Nicholls’ piece yesterday indicates he appears to also, but the likes of McCoy, Henderson, Hobbs would evidently require a little more convincing. It remains to be seen which parties’ voices will prove to carry the greater weight in the matter, but if change is to come eventually, let it have as its origins the discussions of this last week, rather than a panicked response to another spate of accidents over the course when next used in March.