Mares Novice Hurdle

[Old Vic]

The new race ....

[Old Vic]

that a Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle has been added to The Cheltenham Festival, the BHA has today outlined further enhancements to the mares’ programme, both in the short and longer term. The enhancements have the objective of providing further incentives for owners and trainers to own mares and keep them in training.

In the short term the addition of a Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle to The Festival programme provides a further, substantial incentive for talented mares to be brought into training over Jumps. This race joins the OLBG David Nicholson Mares’ Hurdle, which was recently upgraded to Grade 1 status, in ensuring that The Festival provides valuable and prestigious opportunities for mares.

In addition to this new race at The Festival, the Weatherbys Jane Seymour Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle (Listed), which is run at Sandown in February over 2 miles about 4 furlongs, has been upgraded to Grade 2 status. The result of this is that there are now nine Pattern or Listed Mares’ Novices Hurdles over the course of the season.

In the longer term the BHA are working with Cheltenham to explore the possibility of a Mares’ Chase being added to The Festival in the coming years, to be supported by a programme of Pattern and Listed Steeple Chases for mares. To pave the way for this, invitations have been sent to racecourses for applications for two new Listed Mares’ Chases to be run in November and February, joining the existing Mares’ Chase that was added to the programme last season at Doncaster in December (whilst Doncaster’s meeting was unfortunately abandoned, the mares’ chase was successfully rescheduled at Doncaster in January).

Should the addition of a Mares’ Chase at The Festival occur it is intended that a further three Pattern/Listed races will be added to the Mares’ Chase programme. This will have the effect of ensuring that an aspirational and valuable programme of races will exist for mares over fences, and as such a genuine incentive to keep talented mares in training.

Ruth Quinn, Director of International Racing and Racing Development for the BHA, said:

“The developments outlined today are a further step in developing a comprehensive, valuable and aspirational programme of races for mares across Novice Hurdle, Hurdle and Chase codes. It is hoped that this will help to encourage a meaningful change in behaviour with the long-term objective of bolstering the numbers of Jumping mares in training.

“Mares still represent a significant, relatively untapped, opportunity in terms of boosting the Jumping horse population. There are many reasons why providing incentives to put Jumping-bred mares into training and running them would provide a major fillip for the sport, aside from simply helping field sizes. These include the meaningful assistance it could provide for breeders, the continued growth of a competitive market for such horses at the sales, and the provision of greater incentive to test them on the racecourse, allowing their ability to race and to jump to develop properly before having them retired to the paddocks.

“People love to see talented mares competing over Jumps and whilst we have done much in recent years to pave the way for this to increasingly happen, there’s more to be done. We certainly have an ambition to, over time, produce the optimal mares’ Black Type programme in Britain.

“The addition of two new Listed events over fences this season will form part of a stepped approach to the implementation of the mares’ Black Type Steeple Chase programme, with at least three more to be added in the coming years, ideally alongside the inclusion of such a race at The Festival.”

The Racing Department recently invited all owners and trainers of mares that ran in a Mares’ Pattern or Listed Hurdle race during the season to participate in a short online questionnaire regarding the implementation of a Black Type Mares’ Steeple Chase programme.

The results of that questionnaire included 68% of owners/trainers saying that they would definitely send their horse Chasing if there was a similar Pattern/Listed programme (akin to Hurdles) for mares over fences and 89% saying that they would reconsider retiring a mare if a Pattern/Listed Chase programme existed.

Trainer Alan King said:

“These developments to the mares programme can only be for the good of the sport. We’ve always supported the mares races but a better Black Type programme of Mares Chases in particular will provide a real incentive to keep good horses in training.

“The programme may take a little bit of time to develop, it’s not going to happen overnight, but in the long run this should prove to be a worthwhile investment for the sport.”

Attempts have also been made to improve the balance of mares’ opportunities below Pattern/Listed level to incentivise the flow of mares into training. To this end a Rule has also been introduced in 2015 requiring racecourses to run a minimum of one mares’ race for every three days Jump racing.

[Istabraq]

Thanks for posting OV.

I can see the sense in this but would have preferred to have seen a veterans race.
The festival will, once again, be full of 11 and 12 year olds who are handicapped on their form from 2 years previous and who don't stand a chance of getting within 10l of the winner.
But, aside from my opinion, what Cheltenham have done is sensible and has a positive impact on the wider calendar, not just 4 (soon to be 5 !) days in March.....

[Rhinestone Cowboy]

How can they fit a Mares Chase in . Means it will be 5 days within the decade unless they drop Cross Country ( fine by me !)

Foxhunters is almost the veterans race but that will come too.

[Morning Glory]

Good industry move.

[Morning Glory]

Henderson

“Indeed, we currently have what I hope are two top prospects and high-class young mares in Richard and Lizzie’s homebred Chocca Wocca, out of their great racemare Chomba Womba, and Robins Reef, also part-owned by Ronnie Bartlett. They both looked very high class when winning their bumpers last spring and let us hope they are the right material for this very exciting new opportunity for the National Hunt fraternity. I am sure that the race will be well supported and competitive.”


Read more at http://cheltenham.thejockeyclub.co.u...X6VkrcSxIVv.99

[Istabraq]

Foxhunters is almost the veterans race but that will come too.

Foxhunters is almost always won by an up and coming PTP horse aged 8 or 9, though it's full of 12 and 13 year olds I can't remember a winner over 11 years old, it also has some tight qualifying criteria so regular hadnicappers can't simply switch to the foxhunters (as I remember it, though could be wrong).
The cross country is here to stay and until they squeeze in a 5th day, which I agree is coming, the 10+ year olds will clog up the handicaps withou a cat in hells chance of winning.

[Yeehaa]

5 days is coming for sure. If they leave gold cup where it is on Friday and move Triumph and say Ryanair to Saturday 5 days will be fine. Might even see a few horses doubling up.

Veterans chase would be great addition. If Long Run still about RWC might sort it

[Istabraq]

From what I heard discussed they will definitely leave the schedule for feature races as it is with one of the Thursday G1 races (World hurdle or Ryanair) becoming the Saturday feature.
The big consideration is whether they run 2 or 3 days on the Old/New course, that will depend on what other races they can move from midweek to Saturday, for example, if they run Thur, Fri, Sat on the New course they could move the County hurdle to its' rightfull place as the last race of the festival.
I think it's not only inevitable but sensible.....

[Yeehaa]

Love to see county back as last race. If the Ryanair moved to Saturday we could see some champion chase entries back out �� I love the old stories about Flying Bolt running etc running in champion chase and hurdle on successive days

[Istabraq]

Remember when they had the Stayers hurdle onThursday for a few years ?
One of my old favourites, Mysilv, ran 6th in the Champion hurdle on Tuesday then ran Cyborgo to half a length in the Stayers 2 days later, cracking horse......

[Old Vic]

Note to self : research festival dual runners

[gjt7756]

Mares novice 2016

Think this new race could be a great addition to cheltenham but you would have to think it's another that mullins could dominate, the peformance of Augusta Kate on Saturday was something to be reckoned with, yes we don't know what was behind het yet but willie did mention in the aftermath that the mares novice could be a potential target, would love to see the AP prices on this race... Anyone seen or know of any other potential mares to note down in the book?

[Faugheen_Machine]

Limini is another from the Mullins stable who looks like a nice prospect. Won a novice hurdle at Punchestown in May so still qualifies for them this season.

[Istabraq]

Think this new race could be a great addition to cheltenham but you would have to think it's another that mullins could dominate, the peformance of Augusta Kate on Saturday was something to be reckoned with, yes we don't know what was behind het yet but willie did mention in the aftermath that the mares novice could be a potential target, would love to see the AP prices on this race... Anyone seen or know of any other potential mares to note down in the book?

Mullins said after Saturday they would probably stick to bumpers with Augusta Kate but as we know Mullins has thrown us bum steers in the past so he maybe tempted by the pot on offer for the mare hurdle which is about £20k more than the bumper.