The introduction of a new peak in the National Hunt season to complement the spring festivals at Cheltenham and Aintree is one of the recommendations of a review group set up to address issues facing jumps racing, which published its findings on Monday.
The review group was chaired by Edward Gillespie, who was the managing director of Cheltenham between 1980 and 2012 and oversaw the Festival meeting’s rise to become a major event in the British sporting calendar. Its members included racecourse executives, trainers, bookmakers and members of the racing media.
The number of horses moving into jumping from the Flat has dropped sharply in recent years, from 1,901 in 2009 to 1,065. The average number of jumping horses in training has also dropped by about 850, or 14.5%, in the same period.
The review group’s report suggests that “the development of a new high-profile event” should be “explored with the BHA, Racecourse Association, Horsemen’s Group and Great British Racing, with input from betting and media”.
Other recommendations include the creation of a valuable jumps meeting around the August bank holiday weekend, incentives to encourage owners to keep more mares in training, particularly in the novice chase programme, and a taskforce to “reinvigorate jumping in the North”. The BHA’s new Challenger series of races leading towards a valuable meeting at Haydock on Easter Saturday, which was announced in October, was also proposed and recommended during the jumps review.
“The impact of the economic downturn is still being felt in jumping,” Ruth Quinn, the BHA’s director of international racing and racing development, said on Monday. There has also been a turnaround in a number of people’s attitudes towards jumping.
“There are many reasons why that has been the case, and many reasons why we are finding it more difficult to attract horses and owners into jumping. The report goes through all those areas and comes up with a number of recommendations.”
