KEMPTON'S CHARISMA BYPASS

Like the dying days of an old and faithful family pet, or the inexorable decline of a once-proud elderly relative into a diminishing shell of skin in a care home, the reduction of a horse race that has been part of your formal racing education to something of zero consequence is something quite hard to take.

Alongside the then Mercedes-Benz Chase at Chepstow usually a week before, the Charisma Gold Cup at Kempton was one of the two 3m chases that used to fanfare the start of the coverage of the current National Hunt season on terrestrial television – three if it was a year in which Ayr’s Timeform Chasers & Hurdlers Handicap Chase got a look-in as well.

These constituted the first indication to the casual-ish viewer of the firepower the major stables had at their disposal in the handicap chase ranks that term, and of how far forward that string was. During the 1980s, it rarely produced a bad winner, far less often a poorly-contested, unsatisfactory spectacle.

Marnik, Approaching, and of course Everett three times on the spin from 1984 to 1986, Contradeal, Acarine, Seagram (30 months before his finest hour)... no horses in that roll-call upwardly mobile to the point of being future champions, but all decent or better handicappers entitled to win their share in the grade.

That grade being a ceiling-free handicap, which it remained initially at least even after the new ratings bands for National Hunt horses and races were introduced in autumn 1989. Even when a ceiling was finally imposed in the mid-90s, it was set to the highest possible value for a handicap of 150, and little or no diminution of the contest’s quality ensued.

So far so unchanged, and although Charisma finally bowed out after the 2001 renewal, the passing of the race through the successive hands of Skybet, Stan James and Ibetx.com over the next three years had little material change on the race conditions (save no reversal of the small drop to 0-145 introduced in 2000) or the horses lining up.

“The most competitive handicap run over fences so far this season”, enthused the Racing Post’s post-analysis of the 2003 renewal won by the then 132-rated Swansea Bay; and despite both the Summer Plate and the Mercedes-Benz (sponsorship of that race ironically handled by Skybet that year, having not committed to the Kempton contest beyond just the 2002 renewal) having already taken place, that was still just about right.

By stark contrast the equivalent write-up for the 2007 renewal, the first under another new sponsorship banner, was described as “nothing like the race it was”; and notwithstanding the fact winner Oniz Tiptoes’ mark of 123 passed muster compared to some that preceded it, that was no small wonder.

The race had survived a temporary sojourn to Huntingdon in 2005 completely intact whilst Kempton acquired its Polytrack course, but the moving of the fixture to a Sunday two years ago appeared to coincide with a complete loss of belief in it as a viable, competitive handicap. The ratings ceiling was lowered by a further 10lb and the win pot nearly halved from what it had been in 2006 to just £9,394, approximately the same as it had been 15 years earlier.

At the same time, however, the prizemoney levels of the Listed novices’ hurdle and the class 2 conditions race that have embellished the same card for as long remained entirely as before. The emasculation of the erstwhile Charisma in comparison to the rest of the meeting was very much laid bare, then, even before the relegation of the race to the very end of the card is considered.

Increasing numbers of racecourses have put on a handicap chase as the afternoon’s denouement in recent years. It’s something Market Rasen in particular has employed to fair effect at those meetings where no bumper is to be run. The received thinking is presumably that holding back the sort of race that everybody loves to the very end reduces racegoers’ temptation of leaving early to beat the traffic, and that’s not the worst logic ever so long as the increased threat of low sun necessitating fence omissions isn’t realised.

In the case of the former Charisma Gold Cup, however, that move has smacked very much of putting the race out of sight, out of mind, as far as possible without removing it outright.

All of which brings us to last Sunday’s renewal, and how apposite it was that the sun should be setting over the Sunbury track just as the race's worst line-up in history shuffled almost apologetically onto the track. Good fortune alone (no unseats on the way to post, late withdrawals, etc.) these last few years has prevented the race from being run in even greater murk, much later than its allotted 5.40pm off time.

Any significant delay would have placed the contest in some jeopardy; and whilst Radio Two’s noted April Fool’s Day joke might have hoodwinked some listeners into believing something called The Million Watt Chase really was taking place under floodlights at Fairyhouse back in 1990, even 19 years on things haven’t necessarily advanced to the stage where the Kempton executive could have run this race with the lights on if required.

Having evaded any further knives through the ribs last year, the 2009 contest was run as a 0-115 and with the winner’s purse halved yet again to £4,553. Of the six horses to line up, only half were rated on or within 7lb of the ceiling, and the third favourite, Rudivale, was able to race off 10st 8lbs despite a mark of 97 that would have seen him appreciably out of the handicap in most renewals hitherto.

For the record, Nagam continued his form and temperament rehabilitation under the tutorship of trainer Alan Fleming, courtesy of a dependably satisfying piece of Timmy Murphy jockeyship ("held up in the lead", as my Timeform Radio colleague Bob Adams succinctly put it), with favourite Ibberton comfortably held over a trip short of his best and fresh air (hardly clear blue daylight by that time) back to the remainder. A nation shrugged, and Bob and I saluted the winner briefly and went home.

It would have been a race of little consequence without any prior knowledge of its past – the sort of 0-115 one would see 20 to 25 times a month in high season and generously describe as “honest fare”, no more or less than that. But with the last decade’s worth of winners having winked back at me from the Racing Post site just that morning as a reminder of far, far better renewals than Nagam’s, it proved nigh on impossible not to reflect on the contest and think, “How has it come to this?”

One of the great tragedies of the Charisma’s fall from grace is that had the support for it been maintained to any great extent, it could now be quite plausibly regarded as the middle leg of a genuine run of early to mid-autumn targets for horses of a certain trip and course disposition.

Think it through; the Blue Square Chase at Market Rasen’s equinox meeting at the back end of September constitutes a decent 2m6.5f 0-150 handicap around a sharpish, flattish right-handed track. The Badger Ales Trophy at Wincanton in early November constitutes a decent 3m1.5f 0-150 handicap around a sharpish, flattish right-handed track. More or less equidistant between the two in both scheduling (mid-October) and distance (3m), the former Charisma at Kempton used to constitute a... you get the picture.

Simply put, I’d love to see the Kempton contest restored to its former status and then marketed as part of this trio of comparable contests which, if all goes to plan, something has an excellent chance of progressing through, winning all three, and perhaps scooping a bonus for so doing. There must be enough second season chasers rated in the mid-120s to early-130s for whom that could rate a wholly realistic itinerary for the first half of the season.

Please reconsider, Kempton. Don’t let this be one faithful old friend that ultimately has to be put out of its misery.

OUMEY GOODNESS, YOU PAID HOW MUCH?

Not for the last time this season, I imagine, I was briefly minded to consider what constitutes a nice piece of business and what does not during last weekend’s increasingly prestigious Market Rasen end-of-summer meeting.

For once the former didn't mean either alchemists par excellence Tim Vaughan or Alison Thorpe, as Vaughan didn't trouble the scorers and Mrs Thorpe's handicap hurdle winner Treaty Flyer had been moved to her rather than purchased.

Emphatically in the good business camp, however, was the former David Arbuthnot inmate Valley Ride, scooping two and a half times his spring purchase price of £13,000 in landing the feature chase on his first outing for Peter Bowen.

As a horse that missed the thick end of two seasons not so long ago he can hardly have been regarded as a wholly sound, safe proposition when considered for purchase, but the fact he’d withstood a winter campaign for Arbuthnot without a setback would have offered encouragement. Moreover, a chasing mark still 13lb below his hurdling best of March 2006 rather belied the fact he entered the race only five runs into his chasing career and still on an upward trajectory (however gentle) judged on two wins and a place the last thrice.

There would have been far bigger stabs in the dark carrying the same or appreciably bigger price tags at the Doncaster Sales back on May 20th, and in hindsight I could almost kick myself for not paying the sales columns in the Post website and elsewhere closer scrutiny more often. A 2m4f-3m1f chaser with effectiveness on a soundish surface proven? Notwithstanding the minor setback which ruled him out of a tilt at the Summer National, was there ever any doubt what sort of races Bowen was going to aim his new acquisition at if he could?

The same race saw another debut for new connections of a horse acquired from the same auction on the same day. However, whilst Valley Ride was refunding Bowen in full and paying for his oats and rugs for a whole season in one go, Oumeyade did nothing to suggest the £40,000 Donald McCain Jr laid out for him four months earlier represents a tidy transaction. Not yet, anyway.

It won’t be the biggest sum a trainer forks out in hope rather than expectation this season by any means, but the ascent of McCain Jr in the last two to three seasons has been largely predicated on buying or being sent bloodstock which is better quality than hitherto, but importantly which has also had little or no racing experience for the greater part.

It has not been predicated on buying 150-rated chasers out of other yards, not least the yards of champion trainers not especially noted for releasing animals if they still have marked improvement to come. That, with the very greatest of respect to the old man, is something Ginger McCain was more predisposed towards doing several years back, usually to guarantee himself a starting line-up with something, anything, in the Grand National.

The appeal of Oumeyade is an increment or two weaker now than it was 12 months ago. After a scintillating all-the-way 2m handicap win at Kempton’s first jumps meeting of the autumn, followed by the same feat repeated in an Exeter novice next time, defeats in both the Wayward Lad and the Celebration Chase thereafter served as two indications that the racing tactic that had wrought so much improvement from the late summer onwards (far in excess of anything he has ever achieved when held up, even in victory) risked exposing him as something of a bunny in higher-class contests.

Ridden more patiently last Saturday for the step back up in trip, an early error won’t have helped matters overly, but it still ranked a pretty pallid effort all the same, and certainly didn’t raise the bar in terms of his efforts under this sort of tactic.

So where to now? A return to dominating fields in 2m handicaps? Maybe, but from his mark of 150 connections won’t find many of those open to him over the season, even if he does drop a few pounds for Saturday's effort.

How about make-all tactics in 2m conditions races, such as the Desert Orchid Chase over the same Kempton course and distance that served him so well once last term, perhaps? Maybe, but it’s hard to imagine something like Petit Robin or a fit-again Fieppes Shuffle won’t be around to take him on for the lead.

Maybe the National after all? His current mark would guarantee him a place in any renewal of that contest, and half-brother Ladalko did of course take Warwick’s 3m5f Grade 3 handicap in heavy ground nearly three seasons ago. The propensity to stay further over time may be there, then. But as Timeform Radio’s excellent Terry Norman always warns us when comparing (half-) siblings’ respective profiles and hoping or expecting the qualities of one to transfer in full to the other; “Elvis’s brother was a baker”.

It seems inescapable that for a horse on the most recent evidence best at 2m, yet to win over further than a sharp 2m5½f and totally untried beyond 3m1f, the words “stamina to prove” will feature foot-high in the text of his Spotlight write-up the first time he tries a marathon trip, whether or not he then proves able to silence the doubters.

Getting a big win out of Oumeyade at any distance will rate among the biggest challenges of McCain Jr’s nascent training career to date, and with that already promises to be, for me at least, one of the more engaging sub-plots of the 2009-2010 season even so early on.

Whatever the outcome, it will still be a purchase to have me shaking the head and tutting, “what were you thinking?!?” rather less than on learning of the £360,000 spent on another of that Market Rasen chase’s participants, De Soto, two and a half years ago. Return on investment so far? £19,432, give or take a few pence!

***

At an earlier stage of its career than either Oumeyade or Valley Ride, but recently sold for more than either, another quiet-season purchase to catch the eye was that of Jurisdiction, who is likely to have his first run since joining Rose Dobbin at Kelso this coming weekend.

This Goldmark 5yo has already hit the headlines once this season by virtue of his outgoing connections. Prior to May 2009, Bradfield, Devon-based farrier and former licensed trainer Graham Hollis had not had so much as a single runner under Rules for almost exactly 12 years and not trained a winner for two decades. Nevertheless, Jurisdiction belied odds of 20-1 to dispatch allcomers by 3l and upwards to make his racecourse debut a winning one.

The gelding’s subsequent appointment in the ring ultimately meant that a mere 4,500gns investment by Hollis at Dbs Sales during August 2007 became a 45,000gns sale to Mrs Dobbin at the same venue two years on. A very tidy piece of business for one of the smallest operations you'll see represented outside of hunter chases and points this term, therefore; and as a once-raced half-brother to a 3m hurdle winner with all the physical prowess to make the sort of chaser the Dobbin yard would love to make a mark with, who's to say the 10-times larger outlay won't yet turn out to be just as astute compared to monies won for the new connections, either?