What makes the perfect week at Cheltenham?
The Festival is a sporting event like no other. Marcus Armytage explains what can turn a good week into a great one
A good news story
Sometimes the hype and expectation – the whole season has been geared to these four days – is so great that it can be overwhelming. It becomes hard for the action to actually meet expectation. An experienced racegoer will notice the small nuances in the cheer for a winner, but what really kicks off the crowd is to get a short-priced favourite, either Irish or local, on the board quickly. It is what
Rachael Blackmore describes as “financially-backed applause”. So if Shishkin wins the first race or Notebook (Irish, short-priced, Blackmore on board) the second, it will raise the decibel levels. Occasionally, when there is lower expectation, a “quieter” day can throw up the best stories and most popular victories. This was never more evident than Thursday last year when Bryony Frost won the Ryanair Chase on Frodon and was swiftly followed by Paisley Park in the Stayers’ Hurdle for blind owner Andrew Gemmell (left).
Fun weather
Cheltenham falls on the cusp of spring and, though National Hunt fans are a hardy bunch on the whole, a bit of sunshine after one of the longest, wettest winters in recent history would put a spring in everyone’s step. That said, some of the most memorable Cheltenhams have been because of bad weather. There was 1989, when helicopters removed some of the standing water before Desert Orchid’s duel in the Gold Cup with Yahoo. The Thinker’s Gold Cup in 1987 might have been less memorable without a snow storm causing an hour’s delay to the race.
A win for the little guys
Call me old fashioned, but I like a good division of the spoils and for a few of the smaller people to get in on the act. I fully understand that, at an event like this, the cream will rise to the top and that the best horses are, on the whole, concentrated in a small handful of stables.
But the same trainers and owners winning all the big races every time belongs to the Flat and traditionally jump racing has been a much more democratic.
I am not sure a repeat of 2018, when Willie Mullins was not even top trainer with seven winners, is entirely healthy. That accolade went to Gordon Elliott with eight and between them they had over half the winners during the four days of action.
The Festival is always better if there are a few giant killers on the loose and, in the past, some of its most popular winners have hailed from small yards, people like Tom Foley whose Danoli was backed by almost all of Ireland when he won the Sun Alliance Novices’ Hurdle in 1994, and, 30 years ago, when Sirrell Griffiths, a dairy farmer from West Wales, won the Gold Cup with 100-1 shot Norton’s Coin.
A star raises the roof
There has to be a balance between fantastic finishes and those true, majestic champions who are head and shoulders above their rivals and win by wide margins.
If the 12-year-old Faugheen (left), the former Champion Hurdler who only went chasing at the start of the season, were to win the Marsh Novices’ Chase on Thursday, it would bring the house down.
Likewise, if dual Grand National winner Tiger Roll wins the Glenfarclas Cross Country en route to a third National, it will be an ‘“I was there” moment.
Horses and riders are able to walk away at the end
The worst feeling I have had at the Festival was when it became apparent as dusk fell on the Thursday in 2013, as the air ambulance arrived, that JT Mcnamara, one of those seemingly invincible Irish amateurs, had suffered a life-changing fall. He broke his neck and ultimately died three years later. Bobs Worth’s Gold Cup win the following day was almost an irrelevance.
That is the elephant in the jockeys’ changing room and, while it would be unrealistic to expect a fracture-free meeting, one of my requirements for a perfect Cheltenham is that all jockeys are capable of walking out of the place on Friday night.
It may be unrealistic to expect an injury-free Festival for the horses, but hopefully the tweaks and changes made every year by Cheltenham and the British Horeracing Authority are making it the safest environment possible in which to stage such competitive racing. If it is safer for the horses, it is safer for the jockeys. The BHA’S vets do a lot of unseen work to ensure every runner is, at least, sound before it sets off.
The craic goes on
For all that this is one of the great sporting occasions in the world, it is also one of the great social gatherings.
For some it is an annual pilgrimage and they will meet old friends they only see at Cheltenham and, while there may be some in hospitality who are only here for the beer, for the vast majority the racing is a huge common denominator.
There may be more cap tipping than handshaking and kissing this time, and it has to be hoped that people use a bit of sense with coronavirus precautions and don’t come straight from a holiday in Lombardy.