A DIVISION IN NEED OF AN OVERHAUL

For the sponsors, trainers, owners, and riders, it was a course of progression that was welcomed. More races, more opportunities, the rival to avoid now avoidable, more winners, and who cares about the dilution in quality or whether some of the races deserve to be at the Festival.

 It's now fourteen years since the decision was made to introduce the additional day at the Cheltenham Festival. For those of us looking in from the outside we search hard without finding any benefit that the additional day has brought in.

 Some in the industry, no doubt in a roundabout way pushing for an extra day and Saturday finish, ask what is the point of being at Cheltenham, then finishing the week off at Uttoxeter.

 This is a weak argument. You get over the Festival finishing for another year, then things calm down with a fairly attractive Uttoxeter card amid Cheltenham postmortem talk with the anticipation beginning on the run up to Aintree. Nothing needs to be put right with that sequence.

Putting aside the clear issue of dilution , many questioned the wisdom in giving the Stayers Hurdle an elevated spot of having its own day as the star billing, along with the unnecessary jazzed up name change to the World Hurdle.

While for others it was not a hard decision given the healthy state that sphere was in. In fact it would be no exaggeration to say that the 2003 running, when the charismatic Baracouda showed a gritty side to his character in beating Iris's Gift and Limestone Lad to retain his title , was looked forward to with more relish than any other renewal in the event's history, even more so than that year's Champion Hurdle .

It certainly lived up to expectations and we had more of the same one year later with Iris's Gift getting even when prevailing after a long fought duel.

The staying hurdle division was enjoying a golden period . It had never before carried so much kudos and once the idea of a fourth day became a reality, it was deemed acceptable at the time for the leading race in this division to be the centre-point of the new look Thursday.

 In fact, after its first staging on the new day, those who made the decision must have felt justified when Baracouda ran another fine race but could not contain the rising star Inglis Drever, who stamped himself as another worthy champion and would be part of the race for another few years until the outstanding Big Bucks (in picture) began his long reign.

 That all now feels longer ago than it really is as the shape of the staying hurdle division has now returned to normality. We are without any crowd pullers and no one can say with any amount of confidence that the division will return to those brief glory years anytime soon. Even if Faugheen made the line up he, as an eleven year old, is a different model to the animal that  dazzled in the Champion Hurdle four years ago.

While it may now be easy to say with hindsight, it should have been apparent that the new day was ideal to have a handicap taking the leading role.

This concept had not harmed other major meetings. Even when the York Ebor meeting had three days, the Wednesday showpiece was always the big handicap. And not just in the1970's. The leading role of the event held steady, even when the Group One Yorkshire Oaks was moved forward a day.

Likewise, Wednesday at Royal Ascot is Royal Hunt Cup day, this before and after many of the pattern races were upgraded to the highest status, same with the Stewards Cup on the various days it's been staged at Goodwood down the years, even including now despite the Group One Nassau sharing the same card.

Returning to the new day at Cheltenham, the race many mature fans still know as the Joe Coral Golden Hurdle Final (not to be confused with the later installed Coral Cup) would have been an ideal candidate for a massive money injection and to be recognised as the big one for the Thursday.

 Some may argue that a turbo boosted County Hurdle would be more appropriate, but problem being here is that the money injection would be likely to attract one or two that would otherwise be live outsiders for the Champion Hurdle, a race that can ill afford to take another knock.

 No, the right thing would be an event to attract many of the quality staying hurdlers, eating right into the very top level. Thus if a race were to suffer it would be the Stayers Hurdle itself, which would be an intentional and acceptable consequence of the initiative.

 The now named Pertemps Final has had some memorable renewals, none more so than when in 1983 the Jimmy Fitzgerald trained, future Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Forgive 'N Forget, landed a monstrous gamble to beat Michael Dickinson's Brunton Park, his market rival.

 Proper promotion going hand in hand with a fiercely promoted and hopefully fiercely bet on ante-post market, which is one aspect of the Festival that has faded with the introduction of the extra day and races having a muddied shape in the build up due to a wider choice of targets.

 The fourth day is still a move backwards for many purists but as it's here to stay then why not try a tried and trusted method of staging a handicap that stands out from the rest. And now, with no racing in the immediate future and who knows, a possible threat hanging over this year's Festival being staged, there is maybe some time to reflect and consider if changes need to made to what is still the greatest fixture of them all.

image taken by author