The Cheltenham Festival: The jewel of British racing doesn’t need a makeover

NOW we’ve all got used to the calendar ticking over to 2020, it’s no surprise thoughts of the racing masses have turned to the Cheltenham Festival.

This year’s jumping jamboree might still be the best part of eight weeks but it hasn’t stopped the inhabitants of social media whipping themselves into a frenzy.

It’s not even the impatient wait for the start of the Supreme that has got the keyboard kings all hot and bothered. No, it’s the suggestion that you can have too much of a good thing.

Like the strawberry creams in the Christmas chocolates tin, four, it seems, is enough for some.

Despite track bosses declaring there were “no plans” to extend the Cheltenham Festival to a fifth day, it didn’t stop speculation running away quicker than the dash to the first in the Champion Chase.

To some, the mention of adding an extra day is sacrilege, to others it’s an inevitable annoyance and a few see it as some unlikely savior of racing.

Cheltenham chairman has refused to rule out possibility of big March meeting @CheltenhamRaces stretching to five days in the future

What would you consider to be the ideal length of the Cheltenham Festival?

— Honest Frank (@HonestFrank) January 2, 2020

Any move to make the Cheltenham Festival the length of a working week would need extra races. That would obviously dilute the quality and diminish the magic.

There is a solution that might just suit those coming from every angle. Rather than watering-down the vintage bubbly why not save some of the cork popping celebrations for later in the spring or even the summer?

The last two Festivals have started on testing ground making the top championship races of the season a mud-lover’s paradise. That came, on the back of winters dominated by torrential downpours, biting frosts and heavy snow.

Any horses wanting a bit of ‘good’ in their ground descriptions have been at a distinct disadvantage in the vast majority of the top races.

This winter has been no better. In fact it has been a good deal worse with storms and floods making it the soggiest of seasons.

⚠️Racing Cancelled

️ #StormBrendan has taken its toll on today's racing @punchestown, with today's fixture abandoned pic.twitter.com/vwKj82Qas2

— Unibet Racing (@UnibetRacing) January 13, 2020

With no sign of a let up  it has to be odds-on for a soft start to this year’s Cheltenham Festival with the prospect of a proverbial mud bath increasing with every downpour.

Those trainers waiting for a break in the weather have been given little encouragement by the forecasters and the climate change campaigners make a prediction of wetter, warmer winters in future years.

It all heightens the need for a new Festival. Since National Hunt racing became virtually all year round there has been an increased smattering of decent summer jumps races.

Now is the time to ramp up the quality to tempt the top horses from Britain and Ireland to extend their season and give the smartest good-ground horses some tasty prizes to aim for.

There are plenty of holes in the Flat racing calendar to accommodate a new fixture. Four weeks after the Punchestown Festival would bring it up to the approach to the Derby when a pre-Classic lull would dove-tail into the current fixture list quite nicely.

The timing would be perfect for runners coming from Ireland’s top spring Festival and Britain’s end-of-season meeting at Sandown.

Those to have performed at both Cheltenham and Aintree could be enticed into a third Festival appearance.

Read all of Steve Jones’ blogs, here: 

Surely the creation of a summer jumps festival with plenty of prizemoney and graded races would have both the horses and punters flocking to the venue.

Where that venue would be is more of a puzzler. Perhaps, Perth’s hugely-popular Festival could be used as a starting point with bigger, more valuable races, added to the cards with the fixture nudged into late May.

Market Rasen, Uttoxeter and Worcester are other tracks with potential to hold the new Festival with others likely to put their hand up to stage such a prestigious fixture.

It could also be used to mark the start of a much-needed summer break – perhaps a month – for jump racing. This year there’s just six blank days following Sandown’s end-of-season card and that coincides with the Punchestown Festival.

A 12-day break in August offers some respite to jockeys, trainers and stable staff but three of four weeks off during June would surely be a better option.

So let’s not dilute the National Hunt Festival with a fifth day and more races – let’s try to replicate it, in some fashion, a couple of months later and let the good-ground horses have their day.

It might not be Cheltenham – but it could become the next best thing.