The BHA announce a major review of jump racing

Racing For Change was so successful on the flat that the BHA have decided to get the ball rolling with national hunt racing.

http://www.racingpost.com/news/live.sd?event_id=7585524&category=0

It will be the first review of jumps racing since 2004 and will be a 20 person committee/ old men in grey suits lead by Edward Gillespie.

Not doubt they will come up with ideas like a national hunt Champions Day at Ascot.

I am currently looking back at Racing For Change and what it has (not) achieved including looking back through a number of forums/ threads from the old BBC 606 website to see what racing fans/ racegoers wanted.

So just wondering what people think of the review and what ideas/ changes you would like to see brought to national hunt racing?

 

Ways to improve NH racing:

(i) erect a lifesize statue of Mr Henderson at every racecourse,

(ii) when a saddle monkey transgresses the whip rules drag them out in front of the grandstand and horse whip them. This will ensure the horrors of whip abuse ends for good. In the case of Corinthian riders a gentle warning will suffice,

(iii) restore the Cheltenham Festival to 18 races over 3 days. Get rid of nonsense events such as The Mares Hurdle and that 20 furlong novices handicap chase,

(iv) remove the bust of A P McCoy from God’s own racecourse, Newton Abbot. When I go racing there that is the last thing I want to see,

(v) have less meetings. Most weekdays, during the winter, I see no need for more than 2 meetings a day on a Saturday limit it to 3. The current programme is overkill and results in prizemoney very thinly spread,

(vi) have a period of time (say 2 weeks or even a month) between the end of one season and the beginning of another,

(vii) get rid of that ridiculous free ‘tickets for troops’ nonsense. If those freeloading wasters want a ticket then they do what we all do and pay for it,

(viii) redistribute The Queen’s racing interests to the Treasury. Keep the animals in training with Mr Henderson but all profits go to ‘Giddy’ Osbourne’s Exchequer,

(ix) make more of Festivals and meetings staged earlier in the campaign (such as Newbury’s Hennessy Festival, the King George VI meeting and Haydock’s Betfair card). Don’t make the season all about Cheltenham in March,

(x) run more Veterans Chases. They are hugely popular and open up a whole new programme to chasers aged 10 and above,

(xi) show Sam-Waley-Cohen’s ride aboard Warne, in last season’s Aintree Foxhunters, at the commencement of every meeting to the saddle monkeys present. Make them aware that this is the level that the should all be aspiring to, and

(xii) never have another Grand National in which Mr Henderson holds a licence and doesn’t have a runner. Such a scenario results in at least 50% of the population having no interest in the 'showcase' event, of the term, and is akin to ‘The Boat Race’ without Oxford. Allow him to ‘annex’ a runner(s) should this happen again.

I’m sure my invitation to join the Panel is in the post and I look forward to sitting on the committee.

 

Some of the discussions on BBC606

Future of Racing part 2 (can't find part 1)

Racing for Change over sticks

There must be others. If you came across any more please add for info

 

Build the Kempton meeting up more, and have winter championship races over every discipline.

Also have a bigger gap between Cheltenham and Aintree, atleast 6 weeks to attract better horses to the Aintree meeting.

We could maybe even try to get the Irish involved so that Punchestown doesn't suffer. Get them to shift their meeting a few weeks back, and offer a huge million pound bonus to any horse that wins open G1 races at all 3 meetings.

We could even move Cheltenham forward a little bit to accommodate it.

 

Just take out the jumps and turn it all into decent racing. Squire showed the way forward.

 

Is there not jumps racing down under Cyc? I thought there was

 

I'd have more meetings at Kempton, Southwelll and Lingfield and urge the owbners to have mixed jumps and all weather cards. In fact it's a shame they don't run a series of Group 1 races togetehr with the traditional St Stephen's Day racing.

I've long been an advocate of installing a tapetta track at Cheltenham and running a 10 furlong Group 1 there as that would defintely give the festival the shot in the arm it needs.

Finally, I'd scarap the grand national and put more focus on the other meeting that is usually run at Newcastle.

 

Yeah mate, we have a few races. I don't know how many, but I doubt there would be any more than 150 races per year, so it's almost non existent here. I think you guys have about half the jump races in the world. The UK leads the world in the support of plodder racing. It must be something of which the country is truly proud. There are not too many nations that can find a way to keep second rate plugs in training.

 

I think a lot of it is down to the climate Cyc, as winter ground is preferred for jumps racing. Not many countries get as much winter ground as we do. Your guys winter is like our summer

 

I tend to take the piss a bit when it comes to jump racing Shergy, but in truth, when I eventually got to see a race, (I've only seen the one) I really enjoyed it.

 

I find jumps racing more exciting, though the flat is better for making money on.

They need to introduce stalls to jumps racing to make it punter friendly

 

I think the whip rules in both codes need to be made crystal clear and if you hit too many times you automatically lose the race. If one jock breaks the rules and another doesn't and there is a head in the difference clearly it's unfair. There is nothing as visually unpleasant as average jocks bashing a horse at the end of a 3 mile + chase onheavy ground. Interesting the best jockey's hardly ever get whip bans - cooper at chelts anobvious exception.

 

I would be happy to see whips banned altogether. The only problem is that it may cause a safety problem in itself so I can't see a time when riders will not carry whips. However it wouldn't be unreasonable to restrict whip use to safety measures only. I think some jockeys use the whip to overcome their shortcomings as a rider.

 

I have not been to a National Hunt meeting in more than eight years, so I cannot really offer any suggestions as to what the Jumps Racing For Change should come up with.

Purely from my own perspective, I have to say that what happened under Flat Racing For Change has been totally unsatisfactory. I used to go racing in the UK about eighteen to twenty times a season but currently I only have six days in the diary for 2015; however, a significant part of that reduction are not specifically the fault of RFC.

Quite a number of the fixtures that I used to regularly attend have been carved up to create big race Saturdays that used to be midweek races; and also some of my favourite race days have been rearranged to create Ladies’ Days with the races moved on to different days (e.g. Newmarket July meeting).

 

Why don't they have races shorter than 2 miles (eg 6f sprint with starting stalls)?

 

To be truthful, I was horrified when I saw my first hunt race in the UK. It was many moons ago on the old BBC site. Seeing all these animals circling around awaiting the start was a real surprise. When they finally let them go, those out the back conceded heaps of ground to the starters up front. I suppose a lot of those out the back were there for a reason, that being no early pace, but I found it hard to believe that a great many horses were badly done by when the starter said go. Barrier stalls would make for a far fairer exercise as far as I can see. Stalls have been put in place all across the globe for a good reason, maybe it's about time the hunt scene moved into the modern age.

 

A six furlong National Hunt race sounds like fun – place the hurdles every half a furlong so they jump eleven obstacles a bit like the human 60m hurdles race. Would they have to stay in lanes? That would make it a bit of a non-starter for horses that want to be held up at the back.

I guess that the races have always been over long distances because historically steeplechasing was a cross country race from one church to another jumping over the fences and other obstacles that were in the way. Nowadays these slow old plodders would not exactly cover six furlongs very quickly. If they were quick over six furlongs they would have run on the flat – remember Desert Orchid had a sprint pedigree.

 

There are no starting stalls in National Hunt racing because during the winter months when the ground is soft they would get stuck in the mud and then the horses would not be able to get past in races where the distance required them to do more than one circuit of the course.

With regard to the horses out the back, some horses do not like to be up with the leaders so their jockeys deliberately hold them up at the rear of the field until the business end of the race when they throw down their challenge (if they have kept close enough to the leaders to do so).

 

Surely in this day and age, a time when we put men on the moon 45 years ago, we can find a way to stalls off wet ground.

As for not wanting to race near the lead, fair enough, but to spot 10 lengths at the get go does not make sense. If they jump together, they can then drift back if needed. It works for distance racing on the flat.