cheltenham revamp, group1 becomes hcap

from the racing post.       Seven odds-on shots at the Cheltenham Festival this year were at least three too many, so switching the Turners Novices' Chase back to a handicap will at least remove the chances of one in that event. There was only one in 35 races at Royal Ascot.

When you look back at the previous winners of the race since the inaugural running in 2011, there are some big names in there. But imagine if 2015 winner Vautour had to run against Un De Sceaux in that year's Arkle or if 2012 victor Sir Des Champs was pitched in against Bobs Worth in the RSA Chase a dozen years ago.

Whlie they are at scrap the juvinile h'cap and get them into the triumph and also the Ryanair that will fill the Gold cup and Champion chase and maybe up the quality of the h'cap chases.

Ban novices from the open h'caps, move the mares hurdle to somewhere else in the calendar.

They appear to be dancing to the Kevin Blake tune. Maybe they should hand him the race planning ticket, along with his other million jobs.

Cheltenham is about seeing the best horses. Personally, I don't care if that means small fields. There have been many of those over the years. Does anyone knock Arkle v Mill House just because there were only another couple of runners? What's wrong with a few odds on favourites? Many wouldn't have been odds on through the year. It's much easier to find winners at Cheltenham than these Flat festivals. That's a good thing unless you happen to be a bookmaker.

It was a mistake ditching the novice handicap in the first place given that there are several lesser quality races. The Foxhunters and the Cross Country should always be first on the list to be ditched. One is now a race for horses that have seen better days, and the other has been poor for many years and only survives out of tradition. It's natural home should be April.

https://www.racingpost.com/news/festivals/cheltenham-festival/bookmakers-set-to-refund-ante-post-bets-on-turners-novices-chase-in-wake-of-cheltenham-festival-changes-adQvH9D6VySI/

Hardly surprising bookmakers loving the changes. Laughably suggesting punters want more competitive races. Losing punters might.

How about scrapping all the condition races so bookmakers can win on every race?

I think 24 races across 4 days is ample
would be thurs to sun if up to me

supreme & albert bartlett remain, 2m 5f race becomes hcap
arkle & rsa chase remain, 2m 4f race becomes hcap as they have done
all novices prohibited from hcaps as has been mentioned above
mares hurdle & chase become grade 3s with penalties
mares novice hurdle, ryanair chase, NH chase & x-country all axed

a far more competitive, balanced programme

The equivalent of turkeys voting for Christmas.

More handicaps = more profits for bookmakers, and quality reduced.

This is premier the meeting of the season, and the races should reflect that. Don't you get enough handicaps on 361 days a year?

Bookmakers should be handing a few brown envelopes to those in the media who have been a catalyst for this nonsense.

The sport wants punters to lose, and it seems some punters like the idea of losing as well.

Irrespective of the punting concerns, if I owned a top class two and a half mile novice chaser he wouldn't go anywhere near the Cheltenham Festival. It's folly to just assume he would run in the two mile, or three mile novice instead. It could well be that in terms of quality it's Fairyhouse with it's Grade 1 that will become the real beneficiary of this crackpot idea.

I think the idea isn't to turn the Turner's into a handicap because they want another handicap, it's to root out the grade 1 performers from that race and make them jump  up to the Brown Advisory or down to the Arkle.

The changes so far aren't the sum total of all the changes, the release of these changes was a leak, the final decision on the complete list of changes is still to come.

Regardless of the merits of the Turners, I always found the 2.5 mile handicap a great race to study. I agree that a few top class novices will miss the meeting as the 3 mile novice chase has ruined a lot of very good young chasers at that stage of their career. The Arkle is for specialist 2 milers and has caused some nasty falls so my solution would be a 2miles 3 furlongs and a 2 miles 6 furlongs novice plus the handicap but the course layout may not allow that. As for the longer novice chase, now 3,6 miles, I would change the conditions back to what they were with the old NH chase allowing point to point winners in how ever experienced they are.

I totally agree. Recently it's been a laughing stock, and mickey taking; connections esp a particular trainer has been abusing the generosity of sponsor and treating punters with disdain.

Cheltenham Festival must not be the be-all and end-all of National Hunt Racing. The Turners or formerly known JLT is not the only 2m 4f chase for novices.

hopefully Sandown will do the same with the tingle creek.

I wouldn't get rid of any, but if they really wanted to kick a novice chase out of the programme then it's bonkers that they have chosen the 2m4f over the 3m6f. Why is it okay to have the intermediate distance for novice hurdlers, but not novice chasers? The reason you will get small fields is the limited number of top class horses. You can't suddenly magic them out of thin air. Rather than do something to get rid of them, I would like to see them all running at the Festival. In recent seasons there has been a real attack on novice chasers with horses seemingly prevented from running up sequences as they had previously done throughout history. All this to do with creating more and more bookmaker friendly races. Absolutely nothing to do with the progression of the horse.

I think I read that Lyons was querying why handicappers were racing for more money than Group horses. He is spot on. It's a world gone mad.

The crookies wont be happy until the gold Cup, champion hurdle etc become handicaps. They hate any "easy" races for the punters to win on.

The bookies obviously don't have much clout at Cheltenham given that there are more almost as many Grade 1 races as Grade 1 horses that week. It's like school sports day - everyone gets a trophy.

Very sadly, that's it in a nutshell. Media and authorities working hand in hand with the bookmakers. Won't stop until they drive away all those who can still manage a win occasionally, leaving just the mugs. That's the blueprint.

didn't ferdy win it when it was a handicap with antartique or something

Sep 17, 2024 -- 11:13PM, differentdrum wrote:

Irrespective of the punting concerns, if I owned a top class two and a half mile novice chaser he wouldn't go anywhere near the Cheltenham Festival. It's folly to just assume he would run in the two mile, or three mile novice instead. It could well be that in terms of quality it's Fairyhouse with it's Grade 1 that will become the real beneficiary of this crackpot idea.

there aren't enough grade 1 horses to fill the current grade 1 programme
it's as simple as that

so you condense the grade 1 programme so that the horses that do exist actually race against each other
if that be in sub-optimal conditions so be it

Yes, there has always been a limited number of very good horses, and consequently at top level - which is what a Festival should be about - there will be small fields. There will be plenty of other races with big fields, if you prefer less quality, and less chance of getting a winner. You should just accept that and move on. It's not broke, that's just the reality. You cannot force a top horse to run over the 'wrong trip' if it's got other options. Unfortunately, all you hear is competitive, competitive, competitive which is basically speak for increasing punter losses.

There will be plenty of other races with big fields, if you prefer less quality, and less chance of getting a winner. You should just accept that and move on

cheltenham will account for less than 1/100th of 1% of my annual turnover I really couldn't care less about it from a betting point of view

its supposed to be the pinnacle of NH racing I want to see it return to what it was 10+ years ago when the programme matched the grade 1 horse population
horses took each other on what a novelty!!

It's not broke, that's just the reality

the attendances & betting turnover says otherwise

The current festival just allows trainers to split the horses up and for trainers to run horses in h'caps with 15lb in hand.

Banning novices from all open h'caps should be the next step.

Cheltenham should be a great watch, not a load of 4 or 5 runner horse races. Not enough horses for the amount of Grade 1s we have in the program book and hopefully they start making some of them into limited h'caps. Was nothing wrong with the Victor Chandler 2m race at Ascot until they changed it.

Pumpkin has it right that horses can run in h'caps