GOOD FRIDAY GARBAGE DAY

It's a great historic race that once attracted the soon to be immortal Sceptre, a race where those names on that Totopoly board up in the loft came from, and one that up to relatively recent times had an important place in the calendar

Last Saturday's Lincoln stood up to scrutiny with the best renewals of the past forty years, boasting a winner and runner-up that will both win in Group company this season, and that's something, at the beginning of the time window, the likes of Captain's Wings and Fair Season never achieved despite finding roles as stallions.

It deserved better but crammed into a disorderly fixture list a casual viewer of the sport would have had to look hard to find the event. No build up from January onwards as was once the case, the relentless and expanding AW game now meaning that you don't see the race approaching anymore.

Moreover, the concept of the ' Spring Double'  that was once very much alive with all and sundry feeling obliged to link a conversation about an upcoming Lincoln with one about the Grand National, has vanished.

Twice from the seventies onwards there were periods when the Lincoln's future was far more assured than the Grand National. Remember when the prospect of losing Aintree as a racecourse became a distinct possibility and how it was mooted whether the race should be allowed to pass away.

Alternative venues were put forward to stage the race. Newmarket was a strange one,  Haydock Park a more realistic alternative, with the other name bandied about being Donny.

Now, the Lincoln would benefit greatly from a renewed link with the Grand National, while the Aintree race, although an imitation of the one that is no more, carries a massive prize fund, publicity, and is the best known horse racing event in the British Isles, even though along with the lowering profile of the sport, is a tier or so less important than in past times.

That was how it once was. You would be familiar with the Lincoln ante-post market as soon it was established, mark a couple down that caught the eye. Cataldi, surely he'll start off in Group events, not beaten far in the Champion Stakes for God's sake ...Hastings-Bass taking Better Blessed to Cagnes to gain a fitness advantage--- Clive Brittain bullish about his planned runner but look at his trainer's talks and it's positivity about everything.

When people talk of an absent 'buzz factor' the accusation is that they live in the past, that familiarity and cynicism is something that will remove the knots in the stomach with all the sports over time. That is all very fine but this is not as common in other sports.

Ask those same racing fans who now think of the Lincoln as just another decent handicap whether they are looking forward to the Masters Golf. They will be rubbing their hands, already developing their betting portfolio for Augusta, and while they will be looking forward to Aintree the following week, everything racing will be second in the queue for those four enthralling days.

No, this is not just down to ageing familiarity. This is more to do with the sport of horse racing losing appeal within its own fanbase as well as an absence of new enthusiasts.

Today we have the hullabaloo of the nonsense that is 'All Weather Championship Day'  with seven races carrying the word 'Championships' in the plural in the title, and all non-deserving, some more so than others, and very confusing to someone who is at home and randomly tuned into ATR today.

I suppose the excuse for attaching it to the opening apprentice handicap is that it is just a race of that description on 'Championship's Day' - but why then are all the other races in the plural. Even with the conditions races, it's not clear whether any particular race is designed to be a British AW championship for that particular distance and category.

And is this doesn't grate with traditional fans, take a perusal of the prize money on offer today in some of the races at the now degraded Gosforth Park, and even over at the turf fixture at Bath. Then compare this with the funds on offer when the Newmarket Craven and Newbury Greenham fixtures come around in a few weeks time.

That is during the spell when fans will have switched truly into 'flat mode', where every three year old maiden at the big southern tracks has a 'talked up' contender, and where the Craven and Nell Gwyn, Fred Darling and Greenham can still have a bearing on the classics despite the trend to go to Newmarket without a prep.

They are the type of meetings that can still make a prospective fan bite. A Leonardo Da Vinci or Armada in the Wood Ditton, the race that produces more false dawns than most others until you become dismissive and then a Harbinger turns up.

Then all those other three year old maidens; Commander In Chief won one at Newmarket, Quest For Fame one at Newbury. Then there are those objects of glowing gallop reports of which we have our own that we remember for one reason or another.  Banana's Foster of Stoute's beat in his Newmarket maiden and turned out to be very mediocre. Cecil's Mr Flourocarbon won his Newbury maiden and would be taking the Queen Anne a couple of months later.

The point is that these fixtures have a soul, produce tingles, are fuel for hours of lively discussions packed with the customary 'what if'' and 'could be' scenarios, and more importantly of all show that the sport has a fascinating depth to it.

It's far away from hyped up soulless garbage on show at Lingfield and Newcastle today. Best to hope that anyone staying indoors and channel hopping doesn't stop the button on ATR because they may be put off the sport for good.

image © Michael Trolove 

IT JUST GETS WORSE

 

That familiar sight of swarming enclosures and packed grandstands that the TV cameras regularly focus on was accompanied by smooth Ed Chamberlin's statement that the Cheltenham Festival ' just gets bigger and better'.

The fixture is unquestionably being stretched so is indeed bigger in the context of number of races, number of runners, day on day attendances and money spent by the attendees.

But as the likes of the Guinness Village and the other all day drinking and loitering areas continue to expand, it would appear that the racecourse is more interested in the Glastonbury style festive racegoer than the connoisseur racing fan, which is after all surely what an event that styles itself as being the 'Olympics of jump racing' should be designed for.

Looking at it from a Glasto perspective, this is not pie in the sky for it is only the weather which is the main barrier to an idea that is workable and a potential big money spinner. There is room for the festival goers to pitch their tents, room for stages to be erected, and all without the density of adjoining residential properties for council permission to be attainable.

Aintree also has ample space for this to be introduced. Indeed the venue has a place in modern history for accommodating big crowds for concerts as thirty years ago this September, 125,000 eager souls flocked to the venue to see Michael Jackson perform.

And if anyone wishes to profile the modern racegoer that these venues cater for, they can note that the pre-race concerts Aintree have in their indoor school now continue throughout the racing with some 'racegoers' watching the performances against the backdrop of a giant screen showing the racing.

Don't ever be shocked if very soon one of these trashy concert Summer evening meetings becomes an all night music festival. Would have to be somewhere out of earshot of highly populated residential areas to be given permission but the Newmarket July Course that initiated this trend thirty odd years ago when having the likes of Tom Jones and Suzi Quatro on the bill might start the ball rolling.

The nearby National Stud would have plenty to say though. It's not a prospect which that establishment would be over the moon about.

As to Ed Chamberlin announcing that the Cheltenham Festival is better than ever, just take a look at Laurina who stirred up a bit of a wow factor but one very much tinged with regret knowing that in the past she would have lined up in the Supreme Novices or the Sun Alliance Novice Hurdle.

When you consider the choice of targets now available, you cannot help but mull over some vintage renewals of these events and realise how lucky we were to have them at the time.

As an example, the 1984 Sun Alliance Novices Hurdle when Sabin Du Loir beat Dawn Run and West Tip. If that was 2018, Dawn Run would have ran in the Mares Novices event, West Tip in the three mile novices hurdle, with Sabin Du Loir, who was only four at the time, in the same event, the Ballymore as it is now called, or the Triumph.

And for good measure, the unplaced horses in the race included Lettoch, Ballinacura Lad, Mister Lord and Duke of Milan.

To show these examples are far from isolated, two years before the needless introduction of the three mile novice hurdle, the same race was won by Hardy Eustace, followed home by Coolnagorna, Pizarro and Lord Sam.

Nowadays, almost certainly Lord Sam and highly likely Pizzaro, would have lined up for the three miler.

This is dilution at its finest and you can go through the card each day over the past ten years and find clear examples of the quality of events being watered down.

It was disparaging to hear Willie Mullins interviewed after Laurina's victory when he suggested that the ideal race for her would be a mares only chase, which he had heard that the course were planning to introduce.

This truly is not what Cheltenham is about. The idea surely is to mould your charge for the event, not for the course to produce a race for your needs. Think Anaglog's Daughter or Lesley Anne. If they fancy fences with Laurina then it is either the Arkle or RSA where she will have the mare's allowance.

What irks is that this stretched out diluted festival will not be turning back. Quevega is already a legend from a race that should not exist. If they did have a Glasto style festival they would probably have a Quevega Stage.

The Fred Winter well and truly killed off the buzz that would emanate around the Triumph Hurdle. The cavalry charge to the first, horses who had not run in a hurdle race with such a lick on before. Sometimes a once or twice raced could be anything type from a fashionable yard would win. Other times it would be a real hardy sort who had been on the go all season.

Ironically, many of those who were against the introduction of this event, and still regret it's existence, are now up in arms about Boodles wanting the Fred Winter name dropped from the title.

Well, although the race had played its part in degrading the festival it will always be known as the Fred Winter. The name Boodles conjures up the advert from around twenty years ago with Thelma from the Likely Lads revealing to a friend that she is one of their customers.

Now Thelma and the Cheltenham Festival; far from compatible.

picture from Wiki Commons Library

WORRYING TIMES FOR PIPE

The Professor Caroline Tisdall colours, Tom Scudamore with his coloured gumshield, plus a perceived feeling of hopefulness without any real expectation, are thoughts that come to the fore when the name Pipe is mentioned.

It all seems a long way away from all those machines, many of them front runners who galloped on with seemingly limitless reserves, and who progressed upwards at a rate of knots through the ranks until reaching their ceiling.

From a region whose flag bearers were David Barons,  John Jenkins and even Milton Bradley, and one that was the weakest area of all and put in the shade by Lambourn, the North, Ireland and even the Midlands, Baron Blakeney's 1981 Triumph Hurdle victory kicked off a trend that would by the end of the eighties make the true West Country the most powerful UK arm of national hunt racing.

Overall though, the quality of animal that came into the yard was no better than the rival trainers and the costly Irish stores would mostly evade him, with most of the patrons not prepared to spend fortunes and a long time waiting.

The most impressive aspect of the regime had been the ability to recondition - if that's the correct word - intakes from other yards that had hit a dead end in their careers then revitalise them, often having an attractive handicap mark to play with. Beau Ranger being a fine example of this.

But sometimes there were horses taken in from proven trainers in reasonably fair shape that suddenly jumped to a higher level, such as Bonanza Boy from Philip Hobbs and the mighty Carvill's Hill from Jim Dreaper.

Everyone can come up with numerous examples from either of the above scenarios, there were just so many.

While nothing lasts some things last longer than others and in a sport like horse racing it can never be an individual. It is always a combination of factors, sometimes a couple, often several.

So when the time arrived a couple of decades later for Martin Pipe to hand over to son David, the dominance of Pond House had been whittled away, and in his last two seasons with a licence, Pipe Snr was beaten to the championship by nearby rival Paul Nicholls.

We were told that other trainers began to ape the Pipe method of training which leads to the conclusion that there was a hell of a lot of pretty dumb handlers with a licence in the first place.

There had also existed the exploitation of the French marketplace and building up a contact network to ensure a continuous intake of promising young recruits before the crowd followed and pushed the demand and cost up.

It cannot be denied that the alarm bells are now ringing at Pond House. Look at it this way, ten consecutive years that saw the million marker in prize money surpassed on eight occasions, and close to being reached on the other two, and topped by a Grand National success with Comply Or Die (pictured).

Then came last season.A fall to the three-quarters of a million mark and a comparatively meagre number of winners, fifty-nine in all. If ever a good bounce back season was needed then this was it.

Even allowing for the fact that the yard had has had its share of misfortune, with Starchitect being the notable example, the season has been catastrophic, with a dearth of winners that those connected to the famous set up are not used to experiencing.

Twenty-six winners, striking at under 10% and £359,000 in prize money, meaning a grandstand Spring performance is desperately needed, albeit from where it will come is not apparent.

With David Johnson gone many of the quality horses in the yard carry the Professor Tisdall colours, some owned outright or some in partnership.

Vieux Lion Rouge has been a flag bearer for the yard but is most likely not going to win an Aintree Grand National now, which he had promised to do. It must be said that the decision to run him in the Charlie Hall before the Bechers was a strange one for an animal whose preference for a good break between appearances is well documented.

The talented Un Temps Pour Tout is long term sidelined while Dell Arca is one you feel they have never truly got to grips with, and may have benefited from a switch elsewhere two seasons back, not something you would once have recommended for a Pond House inmate.

And the tale of woe continues with Champers On Ice not developing into the animal he promised to be,Celestial Path who looked an exciting recruit from Sir Mark Prescott's yard but has been dire from the outset,while Moon Racer who was destined to put the yard back on the map has suffered from an interrupted career though may still be worth a second look in the County Hurdle this week.

Being realistic, the big hope for the near future comes in the shape of the Angrove family owned Know The Score. He lines up in the Bumper this week and as with many of those likeable Flemensfirths, he will need conditions reasonably testing to have any chance.

Most owners go with who's in vogue. The most extreme example when Howard Johnson revealed that he was approached by several different parties previously unknown to him but all wanted a horse with him in light of the publicity generated from the money invested in new inmates for the yard by Graham Wylie.

Another example and a bizarre one at that would be Richard Phillips being selected to take over at Jackdaws Castle from David Nicholson, on the basis of him having nous for the modern day world or some similar nonsense. This was in the face of Nicholson recommending Alan King who appeared the logical choice to all onlookers.

With the vogue theme in mind, there is nothing like a festival winner to put your name in the reckoning, particularly from a race designed to throw up horses that go on to better things.

Cue Card's Champion Bumper victory did wonders for Colin Tizzard and took him to a new level. With David Pipe, it is a case of returning him to a level of success he was accustomed to, and an unlikely success for Know The Score could kick-start the comeback that to be truthful is looking in some doubt.