I HAVE given it a brief mention in the race report, but having talked to a few people who follow the sport closely, it seems that not many are aware of the way that Newmarket Racecourse may have spoiled a great story through needless tinkering. It is very rare that an owner is able to win a major handicap three times in a row, and on the rare occasion it does happen, it is to be celebrated.

The competitive nature of the very best handicaps means they cannot be easily bought, and with fields of 25 and over for the most competitive events, it takes a lot more luck that judgment to hit the target. So it is that the achievement of Tony Bloom in owning two separate winners of the Cesarewitch in three runnings, is one for the record books, but should it have been three?

If Withhold rocks up at Ascot this weekend and lowers the colours of Stradivarius, then we’ll all remind ourselves what a steering job he must have been when winning the 2017 Cesarewitch off a mark of 87, but then he also won the valuable Marsh Cup this year off 107 having taken the Northumberland Plate in between.

In short, he’s looked awfully hard to beat in handicaps at two miles or further in the past two seasons, so why didn’t he try to win a second Cesarewitch last season off what we now know to have been a lenient mark?

Some of us know why Withhold was missing from the big handicap 12 months ago, and some of us probably assume we know, but perhaps not. Withhold ought to have gone back to Newmarket with a big chance of landing his second “Ces”, but Newmarket introduced a rule at the behest of the BHA Race Planning Committee, which meant that he couldn’t.

With his game plan already set in stone by trainer Roger Charlton, Newmarket announced the change in conditions for the contest, which specified that in order to be eligible to run, horses must have run twice or more earlier in the season over at least one and a half miles in order to qualify. Roger Charlton, a man of great patience and experience, and one who doesn’t change his plans on a whim, called the decision “ridiculous” and it is very hard not to agree.

Change in conditions

The change in conditions made small waves at the time, but meant that a number of horses, Withhold included, had to have their plans altered, and as a result he was denied a clear chance of becoming only the second horse in history to win the race twice, which begs the question of what there was to be gained by tampering with something which worked perfectly well.

The race remains a hugely competitive handicap, as evidenced by the lack of multiple winners, and there seems absolutely nothing to be gained by introducing this ludicrous rule. It escaped pretty much everyone’s attention that the alterations made to the Cesarewitch were rescinded for this year’s renewal, which makes the vandalism done by the change look all the more careless.

There’s no need to tinker for tinkering’s sake, and I hope this sorry tale sees an end to it.