barjon
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Kevin Blake article in ATR worth a read.
Another tough weekend for National Hunt racing
Could the last defender of the current state of National Hunt racing please shut the door on their way out?
It goes without saying, if you have found your way to this page, the chances are that you love National Hunt racing. I certainly do. I always will. However, the way the quality of the National Hunt racing product has been allowed to go into a nosedive by those at the wheel in the last 15 years has been shameful.
All the issues that have led us to where we are, have been widely highlighted, and warnings have been sounded for much of the last decade, but those with the power were either unwilling or unable to address them, leading us to the low point we now find ourselves at.
A grossly bloated programme book, particularly in terms of higher-class races, coupled with an ever-increasing emphasis on the Cheltenham Festival, has enabled and encouraged a highly conservative approach to the campaigning of National Hunt horses. This has utterly spoiled the week-to-week quality of the National Hunt racing product.
What transpired at Ascot on Saturday was just the latest example of how close to the brink of farce National Hunt racing tends to sit these days. A richly endowed card that was already short on runners was reduced to an embarrassment of just 30 runners across seven races after drying conditions led to multiple trainers deciding to withdraw their runners. For a Saturday card that was showcased on terrestrial television, it was a pitiful spectacle.
On what was a thoroughly disappointing day for the sport of National Hunt racing, I’m afraid Nicky Henderson made it worse with his comments surrounding his decision not to run Constitution Hill.
Everyone knows at this stage that Henderson is a particularly conservative campaigner of his horses. As frustrating as that can be from a fans point of view, he is entitled to choose to do whatever he wants with the horses he trains. However, one would really have hoped that such an experienced and successful trainer would have the bigger-picture awareness to see how potentially damaging for the sport it is to use the language that he did regarding the ground at Ascot.
This isn’t the first time Henderson has sought to create the narrative that he is protecting his horses from injury or worse by choosing not to run them on occasions when he has decided that conditions were unsuitable for them. Perhaps he feels that going down such a road insulates him from criticism of his conservative decisions, but such dramatic comments can only be described as irresponsible in a sport that can never lose sight of the importance of horse welfare.
How must a wider audience interpret such comments? If they hear one of the greatest National Hunt trainers of the modern era saying that he doesn’t want to run his horses for fear of injuring them on the prevailing surface, what does that say to them about the trainers that do choose to run their horses? One can only imagine the pressure that such comments put on the other trainers with runners at Ascot on Saturday. It really did make a bad situation even worse.
While Nicky Henderson tends to find a way to make himself the scapegoat for the frustrations of National Hunt fans, he isn’t the architect of what has happened to the sport. It is the programme book that enables him to be so picky about where he runs. He didn’t run Constitution Hill last Saturday but has a Grade 1 option for him in the Fighting Fifth Hurdle this coming Saturday, a race that has attracted just six entries. If options were as restricted as they should be, or the alternatives to Grade 1 contests were handicaps, these situations wouldn’t arise nearly as much, as the scope for cherry-picking targets would be greatly diminished.
Same point - same outcome
The repetition of this point for so many years is as tedious for me to make it as it is for you to read but nips and tucks are not what the current programme requires, it is slashing and burning. The BHA’s Quality Jump Racing Review has made the right noises about the sort of changes they would like to make to the programme from the 2023/24 season onwards, but whether they are brave enough to be as aggressive as they need, remain to be seen.
Until then programme book is rectified and restructured, National Hunt racing will continue to deliver on no more than a small fraction of its potential as a sporting product. For every year that we continue as we are, interest levels can only diminish. Are we as a sport in such a strong position that we can afford to continue to dilly dally after over a decade of dilly dallying? One would hope that debacles such as what we saw last weekend will help stimulate a very belated sense of urgency amongst those with the power to drive change – however, history has shown us that change tends to come all too steadily in our game.
Another tough weekend for National Hunt racing
Could the last defender of the current state of National Hunt racing please shut the door on their way out?
It goes without saying, if you have found your way to this page, the chances are that you love National Hunt racing. I certainly do. I always will. However, the way the quality of the National Hunt racing product has been allowed to go into a nosedive by those at the wheel in the last 15 years has been shameful.
All the issues that have led us to where we are, have been widely highlighted, and warnings have been sounded for much of the last decade, but those with the power were either unwilling or unable to address them, leading us to the low point we now find ourselves at.
A grossly bloated programme book, particularly in terms of higher-class races, coupled with an ever-increasing emphasis on the Cheltenham Festival, has enabled and encouraged a highly conservative approach to the campaigning of National Hunt horses. This has utterly spoiled the week-to-week quality of the National Hunt racing product.
What transpired at Ascot on Saturday was just the latest example of how close to the brink of farce National Hunt racing tends to sit these days. A richly endowed card that was already short on runners was reduced to an embarrassment of just 30 runners across seven races after drying conditions led to multiple trainers deciding to withdraw their runners. For a Saturday card that was showcased on terrestrial television, it was a pitiful spectacle.
On what was a thoroughly disappointing day for the sport of National Hunt racing, I’m afraid Nicky Henderson made it worse with his comments surrounding his decision not to run Constitution Hill.
Everyone knows at this stage that Henderson is a particularly conservative campaigner of his horses. As frustrating as that can be from a fans point of view, he is entitled to choose to do whatever he wants with the horses he trains. However, one would really have hoped that such an experienced and successful trainer would have the bigger-picture awareness to see how potentially damaging for the sport it is to use the language that he did regarding the ground at Ascot.
This isn’t the first time Henderson has sought to create the narrative that he is protecting his horses from injury or worse by choosing not to run them on occasions when he has decided that conditions were unsuitable for them. Perhaps he feels that going down such a road insulates him from criticism of his conservative decisions, but such dramatic comments can only be described as irresponsible in a sport that can never lose sight of the importance of horse welfare.
How must a wider audience interpret such comments? If they hear one of the greatest National Hunt trainers of the modern era saying that he doesn’t want to run his horses for fear of injuring them on the prevailing surface, what does that say to them about the trainers that do choose to run their horses? One can only imagine the pressure that such comments put on the other trainers with runners at Ascot on Saturday. It really did make a bad situation even worse.
While Nicky Henderson tends to find a way to make himself the scapegoat for the frustrations of National Hunt fans, he isn’t the architect of what has happened to the sport. It is the programme book that enables him to be so picky about where he runs. He didn’t run Constitution Hill last Saturday but has a Grade 1 option for him in the Fighting Fifth Hurdle this coming Saturday, a race that has attracted just six entries. If options were as restricted as they should be, or the alternatives to Grade 1 contests were handicaps, these situations wouldn’t arise nearly as much, as the scope for cherry-picking targets would be greatly diminished.
Same point - same outcome
The repetition of this point for so many years is as tedious for me to make it as it is for you to read but nips and tucks are not what the current programme requires, it is slashing and burning. The BHA’s Quality Jump Racing Review has made the right noises about the sort of changes they would like to make to the programme from the 2023/24 season onwards, but whether they are brave enough to be as aggressive as they need, remain to be seen.
Until then programme book is rectified and restructured, National Hunt racing will continue to deliver on no more than a small fraction of its potential as a sporting product. For every year that we continue as we are, interest levels can only diminish. Are we as a sport in such a strong position that we can afford to continue to dilly dally after over a decade of dilly dallying? One would hope that debacles such as what we saw last weekend will help stimulate a very belated sense of urgency amongst those with the power to drive change – however, history has shown us that change tends to come all too steadily in our game.