Cheltenham festival was unusually ill-tempered at times last week. Maybe it’s the narky digital age we live in; all the instinctive hair-trigger outrage that’s the default setting for any kind of annoyance. But there was a cranky vibe to much of it that seemed to capture the zeitgeist.
In many ways the most obvious flashpoint – the charge of racial abuse by Irish amateur jockey Declan Queally against top English professional Nico De Boinville – is the least relevant to racing’s day-to-day practicalities.
There have been occasions during the festival’s history when race could reflect broader concerns. In a very different political context, British authorities handing out swingeing bans on Irish jockeys breaking the whip rules at Cheltenham in 1980 had a distinct whiff of the chaps flexing their disciplinary muscles on unruly Micks.
But those who believe some rampant anti-Irish sentiment might exist in cross-channel jockeys’ rooms are in a tiny minority, principally because those same rooms would be all but empty if such bias really existed.
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Since there can be historical “frisson” in even the most trivial Anglo-Irish exchange, no one’s pretending it’s fine and dandy all the time when the lumpy collarbone brigade gets competitive and frustrated. But this spat ultimately appeared to serve only those fond of generating cartoon stereotypes.
The public handshake between the two riders was cringey. But the view of the overwhelming majority in the sport was that it was nonetheless necessary. Quite what a British Horseracing Authority investigation can now throw up on this specific matter is unclear. But those eager to parse a singular incident into a “what does it all mean” scenario are barking up the wrong tree.
Exercising jockeys’ minds much more were starts that at times seemed more like something out of a 19th century point-to-point than the shop window of a major modern sport. There was rare unanimity that the whole thing looked shambolic. Sure enough, loads of “something should be done” voices emerged, although most of them struggled to come up with actual specifics.
From starting stalls to leading runners in like a Formula 1 restart, most suggestions fail the practicality test and ignore how, for most other weeks of the year, the procedures work just fine. What’s different at Cheltenham, and will be again at Aintree in four weeks, or Fairyhouse at Easter, will be the value and prestige of the races where there’s pressure to not give an inch.
[ Jockeys’ staged TV handshake won’t make racism row go awayOpens in new window ]
The starting procedures can look primitive. Sometimes starters don’t help themselves. But jockeys can’t get a free pass either, no matter how much pressure they’re under. It was noticeable after so much dissatisfaction earlier in the week how Friday’s races mostly got off okay, at least until the conditional race with inexperienced riders.
One straightforward step to prevent a repeat at Cheltenham specifically is to not start any races on a bend. Massed fields wheeling into a start like cavalry formations, with those on the outside given latitude to go a little quicker to make up the stagger on those inside them, has always been a recipe for the sort of cock-ups that occurred.
Willie Mullins didn’t think much of the starts either. The most successful figure in festival history didn’t reach 10 individual winners again, but the ultimate hat-trick of Champion Hurdle, Champion Chase and Gold Cup among eight winners in all might represent his most satisfying ever Cheltenham.
His unmatched status means that when he gave out about ground conditions that resulted in Fact To File being taken out of the Ryanair Chase, it was headline news. When the horse’s owner JP McManus was unusually forthright too, Cheltenham’s authorities really did get the ultimate one-two from the sport’s two heaviest of heavyweight hitters.
Given the nature of the sport there is an argument to be made for soft to appear in the going description of all National Hunt meetings, although it doesn’t seem as much of a priority for most other weeks of the year. There didn’t appear to be doubts about the safety of last week’s surface, just that it didn’t suit some horses such as Fact To File.
But for Mullins to threaten not to bring horses to the festival in future felt very heavy-handed. McManus is entitled to race or not race his horses where he likes and took Spillane’s Tower out of the Gold Cup as well. But his comments looked like an exercise in throwing his weight around because conditions weren’t precisely to his liking.
Watering is almost invariably a no-win situation for any clerk of the course. Paul Nicholls was livid three years ago that the track had been watered for day two, only for a deluge to hit and turn the ground heavy. That’s a scenario that the Mullins camp seem to find acceptable, presumably because it suits most of their horses. But then again, nobody ever complains about something they like.
