False starts, coronavirus and ITV: talking points from the Cheltenham Festival

Work needed to eradicate false starts

On a magical week laden with excitement and important storylines there were few negatives. But glaring though is the continuing problem of false starts that, seemingly every year now, blights some of the festival's biggest races.

The nervous tension in the crowd on the first day of the meeting reached a roaring boil in the moments just before the Supreme Novices' Hurdle, only for the yellow flag of the starter to halt everything in its tracks. If racing had an equivalent to football's VAR quandary, this is surely it.

Sure, the races are run and winners are crowned but there should be no denying this is a problem in need of solving. Getting rid of false starts entirely, especially in big runner handicaps, is impossible, but stakeholders in this mild fiasco – starters and jockeys predominantly – need to come together and work on a system to mitigate the problem ahead of next year's festival.
Tom Ward