Colm Greaves: Cheltenham could learn a few lessons from Dublin Racing Festival
GRIM: Cheltenham is becoming an increasingly grim racing experience with a few too many people drinking a few too many expensive pints. Pic: PA
Glastonbury is just over an hour south of that Cheltenham hill which means that the locations for the world’s most iconic rock and racing Festivals are separated by just 80 miles of M5 motorway. This is about the same distance that separates Leopardstown’s Dublin Racing Festival from the site of the Electric Picnic in Laois. There is no disputing that the two English based festivals are the giant woolly mammoths of these worlds, ours being a little more niche and gentle. But which are the more enjoyable?
The recent Dublin Racing Festival at Leopardstown in February could prove a tipping point in this argument in the coming years. Attendance was up by 40% on 2022 and a quarter of the tickets were sold in Britain. The influential broadcaster, Jane Mangan said on RTÉ that it was ‘the most enjoyable weekend of Irish racing most of us have ever experienced.’
All manner of media channels purred in agreement with Mangan, concluding that the quality of racing, the informal atmosphere, the sheer ease of attendance and the comparative costs make Dublin a more preferable option for British racegoers to spend their Festival pounds. Like, sometimes a poetry reading and head massage in Stradbally can be nicer than a weekend of heavy metal mud rolling in Glastonbury.
This of course is nowhere near an existential threat to the dominant position of Cheltenham as the ‘bucket-list’ Festival, but for many it is becoming an increasingly grim racing experience with a few too many people drinking a few too many expensive pints. It will be interesting to see if the course executive is flexible enough to learn from the DRF success and begin to swap the gruff commands of Gloucestershire crowd control with the smiling warmth of the Dublin welcome.
There’s a wise old saying which warns us that when something seems too good to be true then it probably is. On this very day last year something happened in the Supreme Novice Hurdle that seemed far too good to be true.
Nine horses went to post, including Jonbon, Mighty Potter and Constitution Hill and 12 months later a treble on these three winning their chosen Grade One contests this week amounts just to a skinny 7/1. If all goes to plan for them then they could be ante-post favourites for next year’s Champion Chase, Gold Cup and Champion Hurdle by the close of business on Friday.
All of which suggests that last year’s Supreme may prove in time to be one of the deepest novice hurdle races ever run at the Cheltenham Festival. Yet Constitution Hill still won it by a couple of dozen lengths, storming up the hill like a five-furlong sprinter. At the course eighty-thousand spectators rubbed their eyes in disbelief, wondering if what they were watching was real.
In the pubs around Cheltenham that night talk turned to finding a novice hurdler from any era that might ever have delivered an equivalent performance at The Festival and discussion generally began and ended with the great Golden Cygnet in 1978 as the only remotely viable comparison.
Constitution Hill has won his only two races since, both Grade Ones, with equal brilliance and Tuesday seeks to progress to the next level of his legend in the Champion Hurdle. Happily, he faces a durable and talented opponent in State Man who is a solid benchmark because strong rivalries make superstars shine even brighter.
If Constitution Hill can beat State Man in the same manner he has dismissed everything else that’s been put in front of him then the still unproven claim that he is the best hurdler ever seen will be unproven no more. And another wise old saying will bite the dust.
It’s not all about the ‘big two!’
Another horse to oppose Constitution Hill in the Supreme last year was Dysart Dynamo who was still leading at the third last when he tipped over under Paul Townend. It’s very unlikely that he would have troubled the winner that day but could well have got closer than the eventual runner up, Jonbon. Dysart Dynamo has only one way of running and that is with the choke fully out. He attacks his races in the same way an energetic puppy attacks a back garden for the first time. He wants to jump every fence, everywhere, all at once.
Willie Mullins has never hidden his belief in Dysart Dynamo and has sent him over fences this season with the target always being Tuesday’s Arkle. He jumped and travelled beautifully when running his Dublin Racing Festival race. He went on from the start as usual and was still in contention at the last before being outstayed by El Fabiolo, Banbridge and Appreciate It in what was the hottest novice chase of the season to date.
El Fabiolo disputes favouritism with Jonbon on Tuesday but there are solid reasons to believe that this race is not all about the big two. Tuesday’s distance is about a furlong shorter than the Leopardstown equivalent and the course is a lot sharper. Both these factors will be favourable to Dysart Dynamo who may get a soft lead as the big two become be so engrossed with each other that they’ll take their eye of the energetic puppy bounding away up the hill.
