Cheltenham Festival - new 2m 4f novice chase?

Colonel Sanders

From The Guardian

Cheltenham accused of ruining ante-post betting with new Festival race

"Winter comes in on the tail of the last horse home in the St Leger," as the old saying goes, which means that autumn has been over since about 3.24pm on Saturday. It must be time, then, to turn our thoughts to the Cheltenham Festival, as the Tote have done by pricing up the Arkle and the RSA Chase this week.

Celestial Halo and Medermit are joint favourites for the Arkle, Mikael D'Haguenet tops the RSA list, and there are plenty of talented types on offer at bigger prices. As ever, punters must fret over whether their fancy will actually turn up in the race for which they've backed it, and there is an additional pitfall this season: the existence of a new race that may attract horses that would previously have run in either the Arkle or the RSA.

The Festival's new novice chase will be run over the intermediate distance of 2½ miles and will serve as a sort of novice equivalent of the Ryanair. Trainers will certainly see it as a welcome addition, at which they can aim runners that would not have been quick enough for the Arkle or robust enough for the RSA.

Of course, good novices are likely to be entered in all three races and their trainers will surely keep their options open as long as possible, making life difficult for the betting market. The likely confusion has provoked the ire of James Knight, head of racing at Coral bookmakers.

"What's going to happen if you see a good novice win early in the season now?" he asked. "We'll have to quote it for three, maybe four different races and it will kill turnover. We've already reached the point where some trainers are entering their horses in half a dozen different races at the meeting and leaving the final decision as late as possible. I can't believe that it makes any sense.

"From a marketing perspective, you want to know which races the horses are running in as early as possible, so that you can build up some anticipation, and, from a punter's point of view, we'll be quoting the same five or six horses at the head of the betting for three different races and that's a real turn-off.

"There's already a 2½-mile novice chase at Aintree. I just can't see what need the new race fills."

Totesport's spokesman, George Primarolo, said he could see understand Knight's concern but thought the new race was unlikely to have a dramatic effect on turnover. "It's going to make things tricky for punters and odds-compilers as between the Arkle and the new race," he said, "but horses that might run in the RSA tend to stand out. You'll pretty much know what's going for that, though I suppose you might get the odd dodgy stayer dropping out for the new race."

Cheltenham's spokesman, Andy Clifton, said there was nothing new about horses having multiple potential targets at the Festival, with the final choice only being revealed at the last minute, though he conceded that the new race added another option. "I think if the bookmakers are being honest, they'll admit that ante-post turnover is, in any case, completely dwarfed by the betting on the day," he added.

Clifton pointed out that similar concerns had been expressed when the Ryanair Chase had been created for the 2004-05 season, but argued that that race had proved a success and had established its own identity. "Anyone would be hard pushed to say that the quality of the Gold Cup has been diminished over the past five years," he said.

The new race will begin life as a Grade Two, so it still seems likely that the very best novices will line up for greater glory and more prize money in either the Arkle or the RSA. But punters who enjoy a flutter in the months leading up to the Festival should not forget that there is now a ready alternative to both.

So for me ante post betting on both the Arkle and RSA Chase are officially dead

Why the hell do they keep tinkering with the festival? 3 days was perfect and 99% of punters will say they preferred it that way. Greed made the change to 4 now another nothing race to add to the conditional's hurdle.

I assume it's only a matter of time before the festival is moved so that one day is the Saturday?

UrbanSea

Agreed,extending something usually waters down the quality of racing.

LutherBlissett

Absolutely loving the way bookmakers complain. It just shows the way that nowadays, people think that racing revolves around betting, rather than vice versa.

Personally I think it's a good idea - there have been plenty of horses that are not quick enough for 2m, but not suited to 3m either. Look at horses like One Man - fair enough, he did eventually win the Champion Chase, but he was a horse that was between distances for his career. What's wrong in principle with having a race to cater for the best horse over 2m 4f? It's not exactly like it's an arbitrary distance - many, many races in the calendar are run over it, and falling between the 2 and 3 mile markers, it's a recognised and logical distance for campaigning over.

If you accept that such a race has a place in the championship calendar, I don't see what a novice race should not be held as a springboard to chases like the Ryanair. Why should a horse have to be run out of it in the Arkle or exhausted by the Sun Alliance? If a horse is capable of doing well at 2m 4f as a youngster, it is only right that it does not unfairly attract the label of "just off top class" by failing in the Arkle or the RSA.

bit of a bogey

I was actually just thinking the other week that there is a need for a 2m 4f (ish) novice chase!

Really I'd just like to see the old Cathcart!

mdwexford

Load of rubbish.

Slowly but surely making the festival worse every year.

finbarrk

A few years ago we could call every race and the times of them for the 3 days. Now we are gone confused and it's not getting any better. Like the Derby, they went against tradition and changed things for the worse.
Still go there though!

hucklebuck

I love the festival and like the way it is four days. This new race is stupid, so it going to be a new race or does it replace an existing race.

It might be no harm to have entry requirements based on ratings for the races, I hate the way you can have a horse in the ante post market for 4 races. I love betting ante post and Cheltenham is always a hard one to pick apart especially with all the entries. Maybe they should bring in an early declaration stage in February, thus giving the punters a chance to find some Ante Post value.

Goldcupfav

http://www.attheraces.com/article.aspx?hlid=511863&lid=&raceid=&title=New+race+at+the+Festival&ref=PA+Racing+Feed&nav=&sub=&day=Thu