Ruby Walsh: Never mind the noise, Cheltenham will always deliver
FULL HOUSE: Absurde, with Paul Townend up, on their way to winning the BetMGM County Handicap Hurdle last year. Pic: Harry Murphy/Sportsfile
It has been 29 years since I made my first journey to the Cheltenham Festival, and there have been all sorts of peaks and troughs since. Gold Cups and Champions Hurdles, winners and losers, fallers, and visits to Cheltenham General or the orthopaedic unit in Gloucester Hospital.
You never know what's in store once you get to go, but 2001, when Foot And Mouth struck, and the gates never opened was the lowest point for the great venue. 2021 wasn't much better; only a few hundred working at the venue watched Rachael Blackmore sweep all before her during the covid lockdown period. But absence made the heart grow fonder, and that year created a boom in 2022 that Cheltenham Racecourse is still paying for.
Some 280-odd thousand people flocked to the Cotswolds, which would have been an amicable split of 70 thousand a day, but that was not how people decided to come, and Thursday and Friday were rammed.
A capacity number was introduced, but the poor decision was to hike the prices, assuming this was a product people couldn’t get enough of. While the corporate end held up, the casual racegoers on the ground felt the pinch, and soaring accommodation prices didn't help them either.
Almost 80,000 fewer racegoers will pitch up this week, and while everyone has a theory, a finger to point, and a rationale for the downswing, value for money is the only answer to the problem and that doesn't mean the price of your ticket but what you get for the ticket.
I have never had to pay to enter Cheltenham racecourse, so I won't preach about the price of entrance, but I walk around the same venue as everyone else, use the same facilities, and meet the same people. I watch the same racing and expect the same experience as everyone else. And I want to feel like this place matters more than any other race meeting because this place is supposed to be heaven on earth for racegoers.
It should be. It’s built and designed to create an atmosphere like no other racecourse in Britain and Ireland. The parade ring is sunk behind the stands, with walkways out for the horses to skirt the betting rings and routes to the start to bring the action as close as possible to the enclosures. It's designed to house 70,000 for noise, atmosphere, and wow moments, intended for people to stand, stare, and whisper to each other, ‘I was there’. Which it does.
Constitution Hill’s 2023 Champion Hurdle was followed by Honeysuckle in the Mares’, and the theatre played its part in the emotion, joy, and sadness of that hour. It created the environment for the scenes of joy when The Real Whacker won, family pride for A Dream To Share, and the scene where Bravemansgame threw it down to Galopin Des Champs in the Gold Cup.
This year will also have its ups and downs, with a cracking Champion Hurdle and a Gold Cup hero bidding for a hat-trick. Not every race will entertain nor suit every punter but, as a sport, the talent is there to deliver.
Every sport has its highs and lows, and not every game in the football or hurling championship is a classic. Not that long ago, Dublin won eight in 10 years, and Kilkenny won 11 in 15, but brilliance in sport should dominate, not just succeed, and Willie Mullins is doing that. His dominance won't last forever, but there will come a day when people talk about what he achieved and what they saw him do.
Time will taint the memories, as it always does. Brave Inca won the first at the last three-day Festival, in 2004, and the place erupted, but Betfair was in its infancy, and online gambling was a figment of the imagination. On course, punting mattered.
I won the last race three days later, on the 7/1 joint favourite in the County. I have the pictures, and the parade ring resembles the one that will greet the Martin Pipe winner next Friday - a poor imitation of what greets the Gold Cup winner 90 minutes before as people now hit the road saying the four days are long. It was the same when it was three!
Nine of the 20 favourites won in 2003, and a 10th winner was a joint favourite, but time doesn’t remember that, even if history does, because we are all programmed to remember what we choose or what we are recently told.
A new era is dawning up the ranks at Cheltenham racecourse, and the fightback against ailing crowds is set to begin, but don't be fooled about how uncompetitive this meeting is because, for reasons I can't explain, all the supposed good things won't win.
The changes to the program qualifications have worked to an extent, but the Irish team is as strong as it has been in recent years, and the British are struggling to turn the wheel. Cheltenham can’t fix that; only the British trainers can. Strength comes in numbers, and the quantity produces the quality, but to have champions, you need novices, and Britain has very few of them.
Instead, Dublin port will be busier than the roads out of Somerset, Warwickshire, and Lambourn. The withholding tax on prize money will be greater than the income tax the locals pay, and the away fans will be singing louder than the home ones.
But the most important thing is that the sport will deliver as it always does. There will be heroes and villains, good news stories and bad ones, but don't listen to the noise: judge this for yourself, because I still love it.
