National Hunt racing - a dangerous spectator sport

Well, we lost Cheltenham, but today still saw the training performance of the week. Of the year possibly. Don Cantillon won a steeplechase at Huntingdon today with a horse rated 59, called Standandbecounted. There was a joke race on the flat recently, which was appropriately won by something with a name like Itsawindup, and today's steeplechase falls into the same category, but that doesn't diminish Don's feat in winning with this horse. It was an eight-runner race, and only three of the eight had completed the course on their most recent run; and that should really only be two, because Standandbecounted was one of the three and, although technically he had got round (after three consecutive PUs) last time, he might as well have been pulled up, because he was beaten 81 lengths into last place, the close-up reading "pushed along and struggling in rear not long after 2nd, last and tailing off from 3rd". Today's race was a remarkable spectacle. The runner-up, who is an 11-year-old rated 79 and whose previous form this season (which included him being pulled up last time) was one second and one fourth from eight runs, failed by a rapidly-diminishing head after putting in the worst round of jumping I think I've ever seen by a place-getter, seeming to land on his hind legs at virtually every fence. Astonishing. I'll check the time tomorrow in the paper, and won't be surprised if the winner has run to an even lower Topspeed rating than his handicap mark. But, all in all, hats off to the Don. He really does deserve Trainer of the Week for that, but it's safe to assume that he won't win any such award.

Losing Cheltenham was a big blow. It's ironic that I had assumed that, in a week of bad weather, that would be the one meeting definitely to go ahead, assuming that, with so much money at stake, none of the jockeys would say that conditions were unsafe. But, of course, while the course was acceptably safe for horse and rider, it was called off five hours in advance of proceedings - as wind, like fog, can disperse at any time, wind-related abandonments generally obviously take place at the last minute - because it was deemed unsafe for spectators. That's a new one! This left those of us who had planned our week around doing nothing this afternoon at a loose end, and left the talking heads of Channel Four with a stiff task, which they undertook with predictable relish and predictable results. (So as you don't think I'm too down on Channel Four - and there are some members of the team who are excellent and who, if left to themselves, could easily make three hours of no racing interesting and entertaining - I must say that Channel Four didn't scoop the Edgar at my most recent Awards Ceremony, that honour going to - you've guessed it - Racing UK, most of the members of whose team are making a good effort but one of whom let the side down badly by coming up with a remark about two horses that neither had recently "troubled the judge in terms of winning").

I think too that I ought to award the Racing Post a slight brickbat. With time on my hands today for a thorough perusal, I'm afraid that I came up with the same verdict that Sara Cumani produced about Winning Post (I can only presume that she had had the misfortune to find a copy which had had my column removed): "It looks like a really big paper, but there's nothing in it". I always find this with the Racing Post at this time of year, ie pre- and during Cheltenham, but today I found that one reached page 44 after about ten minutes of reading. It was all just race reports, race previews and tipping articles. I know that race reports are vital, but it's fair to assume that they are of limited interest to anyone who has watched the race; and as regards race previews and tipping articles, as long as the paper publishes the cards and form, there is limited need for the rest. I know that some race previews and tipping articles can be interesting - James Willoughby and Matt Williams spring immediately to mind, as they both always go off at thought-provoking tangents - but really there is a limit to how much of them one needs. So, take those away, and I think we have Sara's verdict looming large.

However, I have to say that, generally, I find the Racing Post an excellent paper. This criticism is in part a seasonal thing: I know that in past years I have at this time told some of their writers that I think that the paper is going downhill and includes much less reading matter; and then later in the year when normal news and feature-writing service has been resumed I have gone back to them and apolgetically told them that my criticism was wrong. But also I suspect that I'm just down on the paper during Cheltenham because of its role as catalyst for the change of name of the Mildmay Of Flete. I know that there is a school of thought that history and heritage don't matter - wrong, that is not a school of thought, that it is a opinion born from lack of thought - but I don't subscribe to it, and I don't think that the Racing Post should either. God knows how this came about; I can't believe that Brough Scott sanctioned it, but then perhaps he has less influence in the paper than previously. We've lost first the Mildmay Cazalet at Sandown and now the Mildmay Of Flete at Cheltenham, and that is just very, very sad. I'm tempted to use the word 'sacrilege' and, while I know that sacrilege is something like graffiti in church, I think this comes under the same heading. To rub salt into the wound, the year that the Mildmay Of Flete ceased to be was, I think, the same year that the name Johnny Henderson was added to the Grand Annual. I didn't know Johnny Henderson at all, have no doubt that he was a prominent figure in the organisation of Cheltenham racecourse and have no intention of denigrating his contribution, but I can't for the life of me believe that he, if he were alive and were to be asked his opinion, would suggest that his contribution to the history and heritage of National Hunt racing was anything like on the same level as that of the late Lord Mildmay.