IT can often be difficult to transpose the landscape from your professional career as a sportsman to fit into a different one in the same sphere 40 years on. Time and tide change all.

Former British champion jump jockey John Francome went on record this week expressing his opinion that the addition of the Mares’ Hurdle to Cheltenham diluted the Festival. But that opinion is easily challenged.

There was no Mares’ Hurdle when Francome was riding, but neither did we have the depth of high-class mares continually in action that we currently have. How did that come to pass?

The first running of the Mares’ Hurdle was in 2008, the year of the big wind when it was the first race as a Grade 2 on the extended Friday card. Whiteoak won in a field of 13 at odds of 20/1. She would hardly have made the frame in any other Festival contest.

And yes, in the next years, Quevega’s winning run of six-in-a-row over 2009-2014, while a notable feat, might have taken her out of the Stayers’ Hurdle but she seems an exception rather than the rule in that she ran so infrequently it would suggest she had her issues.

The Champion Hurdle in the last decade is an example in itself.

  • From 1970 to 1979 – 0 mares won it
  • 1980-1989 – 1 mare won
  • 1990-1999 – 1 mare won
  • 2000-2009 – 0 mares won
  • 2010-2022 – 4 mares have won
  • So even as the Mares’ Hurdle became a Grade 1 and a more attractive option, more mares have won the Champion Hurdle than in any past decade.

    In recent years, Annie Power, Epatante and Honeysuckle (twice) have won the Champion, that’s four from the last seven won by mares; it hardly justifies an argument that anything has been diluted or an easier option taken.

    Drama

    And on its own, the Mares’ Hurdle has had the drama of Annie Power and Benie Des Dieux’s last-flight fall. It produced one of the races of the meeting in 2020 between Benie and Honeysuckle.

    Annie Power first ran in the Stayers’ and went on the win the Champion Hurdle after her unlucky Mares’ Hurdle fall. Honeysuckle used it as a stepping stone to the Champion.

    Another recent winner, Apple’s Jade regularly took on all-comers and started favourite for a Champion Hurdle.

    Stepping stone

    Without the Mares’ Hurdle as a stepping stone, many of these mares would not be racing, nor would mares have been so appealing to the big owners of today who desire Festival success above all. Rather than dilute anything, it has enhanced the jumping scene.

    Yes, you can find many Festival Grade 1-winning mares from many years back: Anaglogs Daughter, Brief Gale, Tourist Attraction, French Ballerina, Like-A-Butterfly, plus Flakey Dove (Champion Hurdle) and Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup winner Dawn Run.

    We also had high-class mares such as Lesley Ann, Lady Rebecca, Dubacilla, Mysilv and Solerina, but they were rarer. It’s now common place to have a batch of high-quality mares in action and all the better for that.

    Horses like Constitution Hill don’t come around often, so many will swerve him. Arkle had few opponents in his latter races.

    You can point the finger at other races which do dilute the competition - the now Grade 1 Turners Novice over the intermediate distance being one - and I’m less sure there will be the stream of high-quality mares going into the Mares’ Chase with high-class hurdlers probably being too valuable to go chasing. But the Mares’ Hurdle was added for a reason and it has helped increase their value in sales and as racemares, and the eventual sale of their progeny.

    There is a bigger picture. It has given more than it has taken away.

    Doing more harm than good

    DID we really hear that much negative comments or debate about the whip over the last year?

    Are we going to hear a lot more comments and debate about the whip in the next three months? You bet.

    The whole idea is to draw attention away from the whip and the perception of hitting an animal yet the intended new ‘rules’ will do little but keep the issue in the headlines.

    Last weekend a series of British jumps riders, who will be the first required to ride within the new rules, spoke of their concerns of the new ‘forehand only’ position and that it might actually be worse for the horse to have the padded whip landing on a more tender area on the flanks than across the rear. Jockeys now using only the backhand position will have to adapt and reach further back.

    And what constitutes a strike? Watching Rachael Blackmore in Cork last weekend and her now distinctive tap down the shoulder (‘C’mon, concentrate’), coming to the final obstacles. Would that be frowned upon?

    And Irish amateurs are going to find it harder to adapt. They have always been more likely to fall foul of the rules. The bedding in period is going to make more headlines!