THE HURDLING WASTELANDS

It is now accepted across the board by the reasonably minded that we are in an era where the hurdling ranks are thinner in quality than anyone currently alive can remember, and that the position of the Champion Hurdle itself in the big race pecking order, is lower than at any time since WW2.

Let's not doubt that for many years the Champion Hurdle deservedly shared the same high stage with the Cheltenham Gold Cup at the festival. Allowing that you would get vintage, standard and below par fields and winners of each event, they were of almost equal prestige, the Gold Cup ahead if only marginally.

We now have a Cheltenham Festival with the Gold Cup ahead of a pack that has the Champion Chase at least the equal of its hurdling counterpart. Put it this way, in times gone by there is no way that Altior would have gone straight over fences the season after hammering his field in the Supreme Novices.

He looked a potential champion hurdler in waiting that day, even without knowing how the career path of Buveur D'Air would meander. The current title holder was a well-beaten third in the race and by custom would have been the one earmarked for the Arkle Challenge Trophy route, a path he started promisingly on until being suddenly switched back to the smaller obstacles after a cloud appeared over the future of Faugheen.

The two mile chasing division did receive a massive boost in kudos from the 1980's onwards. Starting with the magnificent Badsworth Boy, followed by the admirable Pearlyman, then on to that closely contested Viking Flagship era in the 1990's which was entertaining but without a truly outstanding champion, and into recent times with legends Moscow Flyer and Sprinter Sacre.

But in a perfect world, the Champion Hurdle should have more prestige and be the trophy that you would take given the choice.

While it is an agreed fact that the main reason for the general decline in the strength of the hurdling ranks stems from the demand and opportunities for flat horses to continue their careers in the likes of Australia and the Middle East, along with an expanded All -Weather programme here, there seems to be a knock on effect on the sense that animals that have been reared through the traditional store route and who turn into high-class novice hurdlers are increasingly likely to switch straight to fences.

This goes hand in hand with the loss in prestige of the division, something that will not be helped by Samcro's hugely disappointing beginning to his second season over timber. The hurdling arena needed a big fillip and many were hoping that he would be turn into the horse he visually looked to be last March.

As time races on the vintage 1970's era for the two-mile hurdling division becomes more of a distant memory. Indeed, it is an era that the small number of modern-day racing fans will care or know nothing about.

This was clear when a few years back the Racing Post invited its readers to vote on who they consider the best hurdler in history was, with the likeable but as champions go, run of the mill, Rooster Booster ahead of the old legends.

The image that this vote conjured up is one of vocal here for today twenty-something racegoers wearing designer clothes, taking designer drugs, and having racing as a second or third sport in a list headed by the God that is football, and who themselves probably support one of the in vogue teams in a location they have no connection to and live many miles from.

If such a survey had been held in the 1970's, I would be sure that the young fans then, despite it dawning on them that they were in a vintage period, would have possessed the enthusiasm and respect for the history of the sport to have considered and put the likes of Persian War and Hatton's Grace high up on the list.

To the middle of that decade we had Fred Rimmell's outstanding champion Comedy of Errors who took the title in 1973, lost it to his great adversary Lanzarote in 1974, then regained it in the 1975 mudbath. Peter O'Sullivan once referred to Comedy of Errors as "one of the post-war greats of winter racing."

Both horses had been winners on the flat, Comedy of Errors a very useful handicapper who had finished fourth in the 1971 Magnet Cup when trained by Tom Corrie. There would have been a strong probability that nowadays he'd have been snapped up to continue his career on the flat in another continent. What a loss that would have been.

To appreciate the strength and depth of the hurdling ranks at the time, consider the beginning of the 1975/76 season. This was the season that a changing of the guard would take place headed by Night Nurse, who to many remains the greatest hurdler of all time, a statement supported by him having highest Timeform rating for one in that sphere in the organisations history.

During the season Night Nurse won all of his eight starts. Comedy of Errors ran eight times winning on three occasions, the last of which was in the Templegate Hurdle at Aintree where he beat Grand Canyon narowly, the latter a high class hurdler who ran eleven times during the season.

Lanzarote made seven appearances, showing his versatility in winning the Long Walk Hurdle, while the emerging one time Epsom Derby sixth Sea Pigeon, who was now with Gordon Richards, ran six times.

The odd one out was the runner up in the Champion Hurdle, Bird's Nest. A legend in his own right. Bob Turnell gave him an in line with modern times three outings.

As an example of how spirited connections were up for it week in week out, consider Comedy of Errors seven runs before his Templegate success.

Beginning in the Kirk and Kirk Hurdle at Ascot in November, he finished runner-up to Lanzarote. He then finished in the same position in the Fighting Fifth Hurdle attempting to give Night Nurse 9 lb on their first encounter. Sea Pigeon finished back in third.

In the Trial Hurdle at Cheltenham in December he finished third to Sea Pigeon and Navigation, conceding 10 lb to both. Then over to Leopardstown at Christmas for the Sweeps Hurdle where he passed the post in fourth position, the race won by Night Nurse.

He quickly reappeared at Windsor in the New Years Day Hurdle where he prevailed by a head in a tussle with Sea Pigeon. Next to the Wolverhampton Trial Hurdle, failing by two and a half lengths to give weight away to Bird's Nest.

Comedy Of Errors then returned to the winner's enclosure when decisively beating Bird's Nest stable companion Tree Tangle in the National Spirit Challenge Trophy at Fontwell.

In his attempt to take the Champion Hurdle for a third time, he finished fourth behind Night Nurse, Bird's Nest and Fulke Walwyn's Dramatist, with Lanzarote one place behind him in fifth.

This fear nothing, heavy campaigning, horses are for racing approach was not unusual during this era. It was the norm and to be expected, and sadly exemplifies a period when the sport was at its very best. In fact, compared to how rigorously another outstanding champion Monksfield campaigned a few years later, Fred Rimmell gave his charge a relatively easy time.

It is unlikely we will ever return to such an impassioned period and equally unlikely that racing over timber will ever enjoy such a competitive span ever again. And the powers that be are misguidedly going off on a wacky tangent to try and pull in new interest in the sport instead of going back to basics and accepting that high-class horses competing against each other regularly is the main door opener to the sport and should be their prime focus.

image from authors scrapbook