Jump racing's Cheltenham Festival focus is part of the appeal

There are many commonly held views in racing that I struggle to understand, examples of which include those weird calls for post-race jockey interviews to be scrapped, the even weirder dislike of goodwill refunds when a horse plants itself at the start, and the bizarre notion that Mark Johnson is not a good commentator because he shouts too much.

But the hardest opinion to relate to is that the build-up to the Cheltenham Festival dominates jump racing to a disproportionate and unhealthy extent.

This strikes me as not much different from saying the battle for the Premier League title dominates Premier League football in a detrimental manner.

There are many reasons why I prefer jump racing, not least the greater familiarity we have with the horses and the feeling that you are watching something more heroic when a chaser refuses to let his rivals pass after three miles of combat on sodden terrain.

But the fundamental advantage the winter game has is that every individual race at the upper end of the programme book matters more because it adds another element of intrigue to the Cheltenham puzzle in a way that simply doesn’t resonate on the Flat.

Jockey Paul Townend celebrates on Gold Cup winner Al Boum PhotoCredit: Michael Steele (Getty Images)

Yes, there is the Pattern and the Classics, but British Champions Series simply hasn’t gained any traction and Champions Day itself, while a brilliant success, doesn’t really come on to racing fans’ radar until the leaves have started to change colour.

And so many Group 1s and even Classics come and go without feeling like they have any great relevance to what lies ahead.

That even includes the Derby itself, which is going through a deep lull in terms of producing champions. You have to go back ten races to find the last time an Epsom winner was successful in a subsequent outing.

Since Harzand followed up in the Irish Derby in 2016, the four winners have mustered form figures (oldest first) of 8 9 3 5 6 2 10 3 3.

That represents an unusual slump that will not last, but there are plenty of other Flat races that come and go without us being able to distil the results into something meaningful to carry forward.

By contrast jump racing teems with contests that offer up clues that test and tantalise its followers and they almost all point towards those fabulous four days in mid-March.

From the most prestigious jewels of the autumn and early-winter campaign to the numerous novice events over hurdles and fences there is a regular diet of questions that need answering, performances to evaluate and ante-post prices to ponder.

I ran a Twitter poll this week asking whether the annual build-up to the Festival was too long and excessive, just right or whether people wanted even more.

Of the 954 respondents, 47 per cent said it went on too long, a third thought it was just right and one in five said their thirst for Cheltenham was left unsatisfied.

I was slightly surprised how many people said they felt Cheltenham fever was over the top, albeit I would offer a big price that none of them has ever chipped in with a pre-Christmas Festival-related tweet or two.

I willingly accept ante-post betting on the meeting is not what it was, thanks to a cocktail of factors that include woeful restrictions on stakes, multiple options for many runners, the slashing of prices when the non-runner no bet “concession” kicks in and the competitiveness of odds and place terms on the day the races actually take place.

But to let big races and promising performances pass without any reference to what it might mean for Cheltenham would be peculiar.

It is hard to believe it is only 32 years ago that rugby union introduced a domestic league. Prior to that clubs just played friendlies, the fear being that it would become too competitive and jeopardise the game’s amateur status.

Racing without a focal point to build towards would feel much like pre-competitive rugby, and the relating of all top-level action to Cheltenham is both logical and a key reason why the jumping code is now more popular than the Flat.

Besides, it simply isn’t true that every big race is treated as a mere warm-up for the Festival, as this weekend will show. If Altior v Cyrname goes ahead it will be treated as an enthralling duel in its own right given Cyrname is highly unlikely to run at Cheltenham (and may I just say how much I love the prices available about Altior).

Likewise, Bristol De Mai v Lostintranslation at Haydock will be anticipated for the mouthwatering head-to-head it is rather than a key pointer to the Gold Cup.

But it is inevitable post-race discussions of both these mighty clashes will be laced with a nod to what the rest of the season might hold for all four wonderful chasers, and that’s exactly how it should be.

Spurs will be so much poorer without Poch

Funny, isn’t it, that when managers are sacked the official line is they have left by mutual consent and when you get something as close to mutual consent as Mauricio Pochettino’s departure from Tottenham seems to have been, they say he was sacked.

That could, however, be about the only remotely funny element to this parting of the ways if you are a Spurs fan, because in a nutshell the best manager in the Premier League has been replaced by a busted flush.

Pochettino’s achievements in more than five years at the club were massive, and it is hard to see how they will retain their current status within the division let alone try to climb even higher.

Spurs cut for top-four finish as Mourinho named manager

He achieved superb results with limited resources, a far tighter wage structure than his main rivals, orchestrated a pleasing style of play, did not act like a moaning tosser, improved and nurtured players and got Spurs to a Champions League final.

He did not win a trophy but that is the most overrated success metric in football. A team has only four trophies to aim at every season. They are hard to win.

Finishing consistently high up the table, playing well and having decent cup runs while consolidating the future prosperity of the club by buying wisely is far more important and in those respects the Argentinian ticked every box.

In 2016-17 Jose Mourinho guided Manchester United to victory in the League Cup and Europa League, but neither cup triumph will be remembered for as long as Tottenham’s march to the Champions League final.

Mauricio Pochettino has done a fine job as manager of TottenhamCredit: Justin Setterfield

That’s largely because Spurs have played with a swagger under Pochettino that has made them popular with neutrals, whereas United were a joyless outfit when Mourinho was in charge, both in how they played and the dismal atmosphere he created.

He was undoubtedly special once but is just a boring manager these days. Unless Daniel Levy changes his spending policy, which seems unlikely given how well it has served him, it is hard to see how Mourinho can improve the current squad through recruitment, which means he will have to try to be a better coach than his predecessor in order to bring about the improvement the change is presumably intended to achieve.

What he has going for him, as many new managers do, is that Spurs’ results are due to get better. Bosses tend to leave because recent form has been poor, often uncharacteristically so, and would probably improve anyway.

But it is hard to see how he can maintain the excellent standards Pochettino created and as for delivering the kind of verve supporters have become accustomed to enjoying, forget it. Mourinho’s starting point is not to concede, so life at the Lane is set to become far duller.

But the main challenge for the Portuguese is to prove he still has the ability to get teams to perform as their collective ability suggests they should, something that did not happen in his pathetic last half-season at Chelsea or at Old Trafford.

It feels like players just don’t have the appetite to give him every last drop of sweat, especially as he has shown in recent years a desire to blame them publicly. That is something I don’t have a problem with as a supporter because they don’t tend to get enough criticism when things don’t go well, but which, for obvious reasons, does not go down well in the dressing room.

Mourinho was wildly successful for most of his career, but I suspect there is no more magic in his wand and if I was Levy, and a parting of the ways was genuinely unavoidable, I would have considered Rafa Benitez, Eddie Howe, Brendan Rodgers, Nuno Espirito Santo or Arsene Wenger before reaching for the number of the man they have chosen to replace their wonderful manager.

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