Review of novice chases planned for this summer
Chris Cook: Racing’s ruling body will carry out a review of novice chases at the end of the current jumps season, with the aim of seeing if anything can or should be done to get more runners in those races, making them more attractive to spectators and punters, while still providing a helpful introduction to steeplechasing for inexperienced horses. Richard Wayman, chief operating officer of the British Horseracing Authority, announced the review while taking questions at a ‘meet the BHA’ roadshow at Cheltenham racecourse on Thursday morning.
“It’s the biggest single challenge facing us at the moment, in terms of the fixture list,” Wayman told an audience of racing professionals. While the number of level-weights novice chases has been reduced in recent years, those that remain continue to attract small fields, with races of four or five runners remaining common. Graduation chases pose a similar problem and Wayman did not rule out including those in his review.
“It’ll be a review at the end of the season, involving all parties, through the industry racing group,” Wayman added later. “We’re obviously aware that there’s an issue at the moment and we’re simply looking to see whether we can create a programme of novice chases that addresses some of those issues, such as field size, race competitiveness and so on.
“Ultimately, we’re trying to create an environment in which the young, developing novice chaser has a programme that supports his development. The question is, does the current programme best facilitate that?”
While many trainers are grateful for a small number of rivals when sending a former hurdler over fences, such races often strike spectators and punters as predictable and dull. Wayman is acutely conscious of the difficulty of pleasing both camps.
Sitting alongside Wayman, Philip Freedman, chairman of the Horsemen’s Group, suggested that handicapping issues were deterring trainers from running horses in novice chases. The fear is that a horse might finish close to a big-name rival and have their rating raised to a level that would prevent them from winning a handicap.
Freedman mentioned the possibility of barring the handicapper from raising the rating of a horse that is beaten in a small-field novice chase. That would mirror a trial to take place this year in Flat racing, when the handicapper will not be allowed to raise the rating of beaten horses in conditions stakes, another type of race that typically suffers from small fields. The only requirement is that a horse must have raced four times in order to benefit from this new protection.
Wayman explained of the Flat racing initiative: “What we’re trying to do with this trial is to see whether, if you take away the risk of the handicapper’s reaction ... the trainers would be more prepared to run their horses in these races. If that were the case, then we’d be able to start programming more conditions stakes in the knowledge that you’re not going to end up with four or five-runner races. But we want to get some positive swing in field sizes in those conditions stakes this year to give you the confidence to programme more.”
Asked whether he might want to extend that trial to some jumps races, Wayman said: “Obviously, Philip raised the possibility of extending it to jump racing but at this stage we haven’t considered that.”
Today’s best bets, by Chris Cook
Trainer form. It’s time to start thinking about which stables are flying along with the Cheltenham Festival on the near horizon, and which are making a more troubling journey in the other direction. Every year, it seems to me, there are stables that have been doing well all winter, with the result that they have a few fancied Festival runners, whose challenge proves to be rather tame.
Not all trainers are prepared to accept that something so ephemeral as stable form can have a real impact on their chances but Alan King is not among their number. Ask him about Yanworth’s defeat at the last Festival and he’ll tell you that race came at a time when “we couldn’t win an argument”. And right enough, his strike-rate, which had been over 25% in December, January and February, crashed to 4% in March and was still only 7% in April.
King had a double on Kempton’s Saturday card last weekend, so the Wiltshire man must be hopeful of holding his form into the spring this time. But I notice that Nigel Twiston-Davies has gone 19 days and 33 runners since his last success and that his record for February ended up as 4/63.
Could it be that he’s out of form? Or is he just not running many of his best horses in the build-up to the spring festivals? There have been plenty of seconds and thirds among his recent runners. Keep an eye out for clues over the next fortnight. Trainer form ought to be somewhere in your thoughts when the Festival comes around and if you wave it away, you risk failing to understand some of the outcomes.
I pay less attention to jockey form but, for what it’s worth, Silvestre de Sousa has form figures of 1222 since returning from Hong Kong this week. He’s on my nap for today, Codeshare (3.10) in a middle-distance handicap at Newcastle.
Stepping into handicap company for the first time, Codeshare is the unexposed potential in this field. He showed a bit of ability in bumpers before finally getting off the mark in a maiden over this course and distance last month, when he travelled nicely. Any improvement will make him dangerous off this initial mark and there’s a lot of talent in his family; he’s a brother to winners of the Musidora and the King Edward VII, as well as a half-brother to a Falmouth winner. He’s 11-4.
At Chelmsford tonight, 9-1 looks big about False ID (6.55). Robert Eddery’s runner finished strongly to score at Brighton in June and something may have gone wrong with him at Sandown next time, as that flop was followed by a six-month absence.
He reappeared, gelded, over too short a trip at Lingfield in January and ran on pleasingly to be a close sixth. With that behind him and over this more appropriate trip, he’s easy to like. He won his maiden at this track a year ago.
Interesting bets over jumps today are really hard to come by. I’ve settled on Miss Williams (2.20), making her debut for the in-form Charlie Longsdon in Ludlow’s opening novice hurdle, having been with David Pipe. She didn’t go on after showing something in her first bumper a couple of years ago but may well have found the ground too lively when fourth in selling company on her only hurdles start. This is a very thin contest and I’d rather have her at 7-2 than 2-1 about Mansion, who was pulled up in maiden company at Exeter last time.
Tips for all Thursday races, by Chris Cook
(all times GMT)
Chelmsford
5.20 Justice Rock 5.55 Home Again 6.25 Atalante 6.55 False ID 7.25 Watersmeet 7.55 World Of Good (nb) 8.25 Whatalove 8.55 Color Force
Ludlow
2.20 Miss Williams 2.50 Kap Jazz 3.25 Seymour Star 4.00 Dusky Lark 4.35 Two Swallows 5.05 Persian Snow 5.35 Centurius
Newcastle
2.10 Safe Voyage 2.40 Royal Flag 3.10 Codeshare (nap) 3.45 Magistral 4.20 Bridey’s Lettuce 4.55 Ibazz 5.25 Tarboosh
Taunton
2.00 Perspicace 2.30 Skint 3.00 Spiritofthegames 3.35 Fort Worth 4.10 The Unit 4.45 Monte Wildhorn 5.15 One Brilliant Day
