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Cheltenham Festival chances: Graham Cunningham reaction

By Graham Cunningham

Horse Racing

Sun September 29, 2024 · 2M ago

Our columnist reflects on the changes announced to the 2025 Cheltenham Festival earlier this week.

Festival facelift fuels the fire

Michael O’Leary says they are “inane and misguided” and will lead to elite horses “skipping Cheltenham altogether.”

Upping The Ante heavyweight Johnny Dineen comes off the top rope and booms that Cheltenham is being turned into “a handicap fest where punters get cleaned out betting in lotteries.”

The Amateur Jockeys Association is furious that they weren’t consulted about drastic changes to a race that has been ailing in recent years.

Willie Mullins agrees that the amateurs who aren’t really amateurs have been hard done by but feels the sole issue Cheltenham needed to address relates to his belief that “it has just got too expensive for ordinary punters to go there.”

The RP’s Chris Cook takes a thinly veiled dig at the Closutton juggernaut because his half-hourly trips to the Festival winner’s enclosure are “nothing like so much fun when the same people turn up again and again.”

Meanwhile, Kevin Blake has “next to no issue with the changes.”

Indeed, the ATR and ITV analyst would have favoured “even more aggressive action” and hopes we will reflect on Thursday as “the day that the tide started to turn for NH racing.”

BONUS Horse Racing Podcast: Cheltenham Festival Changes

One good Turners deserves another

Those who reacted to this week’s radical Cheltenham changes by saying that if Mr O’Cheery hates it then it must be a good idea aren’t necessarily on the mark here.

The grizzling Gigginstown guv’nor is no stranger to cutting off his nose to spite his face – witness Tiger Roll ducking the 2021 National due to rating angst – and his star mare Brighterdaysahead could prove a similar test case next spring.

The dogmatic Dineen doesn’t mention that the downgraded Turners Chase threw up a raft of strongly fancied winners (and great stories headed by Hunt Ball and A Plus Tard) when run as a novices’ handicap between 2005 and 2019.

The chuntering AJA must secretly realise that three races confined to Corinthians at the Festival is at least one too many.

World-conquering Willie is too wise to think cost is the sole reason for Cheltenham stresses, while complaining Cookie has far more to offer than just railing about his personal Festival Fun-O-Meter.

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Better to give or to receive?

Festival beauty clearly lies in the eyes of the beholder yet one notable question remains amid the diverse reaction to Cheltenham’s latest facelift.

It wasn’t raised in Thursday’s media conference, nor has it been given much coverage (outside Blakey’s typically thorough review) on telly and in print.

But why on earth are we still actively encouraging top-class hurdling females to duck a date with destiny in the Champion Hurdle for a Mares’ Hurdle walk in the park?

We have been blessed with an era of exceptional jumping fillies and Annie Power and Honeysuckle both beat the boys in the Champion having used the Mares’ Hurdle as a springboard.

And maybe Lossiemouth will do the same next March but her absence from this year’s Champion – even after Constitution Hill’s defection – left stablemate State Man with a penalty kick and thousands of fans wondering what might have been.

Lossiemouth is a cut above her Mares' Hurdle rivals

Lossiemouth winning last season's Mares' Hurdle

It’s hard to think this issue wasn’t addressed in such a wide-ranging review and a cynic might suspect this was one area where Cheltenham chose not to annoy key stakeholders.

Either way, the choice for high-class hurdling mares who already have G1 success on their dance card should be simple: Give weight under a penalty in a revamped G2 Mares’ Hurdle or receive it from elite males in the Champion.

Still, let’s accentuate the positive.

Cheltenham have made a couple of major changes and a string of minor ones that should help bring back some buzz for 2025.

But the Festival facelift of 2024 has eschewed one major nip and tuck. Time will tell if that proves misguided.

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