Jumps programme needs some serious work to battle small fields in big weekend races

The Sun

25 November 2023

Jumps programme needs some serious work to battle small fields in big weekend races

THERE isn’t much in life that wouldn’t benefit from a bit of streamlining.

Be it your waistline or your monthly outgoings… anyone who says this column, you're barred.

It’s not the first time I’ve banged on this particular drum, but the same applies to the jumps racing programme and fixture list.

Now, I know, the fixture list has been an issue in racing since dinosaurs roamed the earth and the mere mention of it is enough to make your eyes glaze over.

Do not fear, ‘Premierisation’ is here, some of you might say.

Of course, the BHA’s brave new premierised world will launch on January 1, and next year there will be 20 fewer jumps meetings in an attempt to boost competition.

We have no idea how the changes are going to work out, right now we all have to keep an open mind and hope for the best.

But the more I think about it, the more I think it was an opportunity missed to do something properly radical for the long-term good of the sport.

Just take this weekend, for example.

You do not need the Betfair Chase and 1965 Chase on the same day - in fact you don’t need the Ascot race at all.

Shishkin should be running against his fellow three-mile rivals at Haydock, not pottering around at long odds-on over a slightly shorter trip.

Not to single out Nicky Henderson, but if you give a naturally cautious trainer like him an easy way out he is going to take it every day of the week.

Credit to broadcaster Graham Cunningham for this idea - why not scrap the 1965 and reduce the Betfair to 2m6f, then you’ll attract the stayers and the mid-range horses?

We shouldn’t just accept four-runner feature races - intriguing as this year’s Betfair Chase is - as the norm.

And while I’ve got my radical cap on, we should go full-on Che Guevara and cut down Cheltenham’s November Meeting to two days.

I was there last weekend and I thought the flagship meeting, which once upon a time was one of the best fixtures of the year, was a damp squib.

We saw a couple of top performances from Stage Star and Jonbon (again, in a small field) but the rest of it was pretty forgettable, and I can’t remember ever seeing such a small crowd at Cheltenham last Sunday.

It was worryingly quiet, and it’s not as if everyone was at the pub watching the football - it was an (excruciatingly painful) international break.

This is the home of jumps racing we are talking about, the most premier National Hunt track in the world, and it’s their second biggest meeting outside of the Festival.

There should be no room for dross but there was quite a bit of it, especially on the opening card of the three-dayer.

It’s been a pretty bad week as a whole for field sizes, and there were embarrassing scenes at Warwick when Dan Skelton’s Pembroke walked over in an £18,000 race.

If you missed it, he ended up being the only runner in the valuable novice chase that kicked off the card, so he literally had to rock up and gently canter a furlong to collect his prize.

The novice chase programme has had more work done than Pamela Anderson over the years, but this winter has shown it’s still broken.

In truth, the last seven days perfectly sum up the problems jumps racing faces - there are too many races and not enough good horses to fill them.

Here’s a sobering stat: at the end of the jumps 22/23 season, just 47 horses in Britain were rated 151 or higher, meaning we’ve got fewer than 50 proper Graded horses on these shores.

I’d wager Willie Mullins has more in his yard alone.

Surely, in time, the wheel will turn and the glory days will be back, but until then less is more.