Keep the faith! Ten reasons why 2021 is going to be a great year for racing

Let’s face it, 2020 failed to deliver in so many ways. A year which promised so much, provided so little joy, but with a Covid-19 vaccine on the horizon, 2021 augurs a new fresh sense of hope, and optimism.

In the sporting world, Wimbledon, the Olympics and the European Football Championships will all take centre-stage, whilst for horse racing fans, the return of the Grand National will be met with excitement after its cancellation for the first time since the Second World War.

Below, we give ten reasons why we hope 2021 will be a year to remember in our sport.

Invariably, sport and crowds go hand in hand. Owing to the Coronavirus pandemic, racing has essentially been robbed of capacity crowds since March.

The 2004 Tingle Creek, the 2009 Ladbrokes Trophy, the 2016 Champion Chase – just three examples of races which were heightened by a deafening atmosphere to match the sporting allure of the action on the track.

Hopefully, by the middle of next year, life will have returned to a new sort of ‘old normal’. With many racecourses having sustained financial damage, the need for the return of crowds has never been more prevalent.

In 2021, that aim will hopefully become a reality.

All sports have their jewels in the crown. Be it tennis and the famous grass courts of Wimbledon, Darts and the Alexandra Palace, or Snooker and The Crucible.

Clearly, the most iconic race in the British horse racing calendar is the Randox Health Grand National at Aintree.

Forty horses taking on 30 fences over four and a quarter-miles, with freshly cut spruce atop the fences. It is a spectacle like no other, and one which was sadly abandoned in 2020 due to the pandemic.

That denied us of seeing Tiger Roll bid for sporting immortality and a place alongside the indefatigable Red Rum as a three-time winner of the world’s most famous steeplechase.

The Grand National fences were back in action earlier this month for the Becher and Grand Sefton. Come April, the race that stops a nation will also be back on our TV screens.

All sports need their superstars, and racing has found another in the irrepressible Envoi Allen.

Unbeaten in ten starts under Rules, the £400,000 purchase is a dual Cheltenham Festival winner, and a five-time Grade One scorer.

He looked his usual electric self when recording a second win over fences, and a first Grade One over the larger obstacles, in the Drinmore at Fairyhouse last month, and with a Rolls Royce turn of foot plus the look of a Lamborghini, racing’s very own powerhouse looks set to light up the sport in 2021.

The Dublin Racing Festival looks his next port of call in early February, before he potentially attempts to land the Marsh Chase at the Cheltenham Festival in March.

Whilst Ireland and Gordon Elliott might have Envoi Allen, Great Britain have their own secret weapon in the shape of the Nicky Henderson-trained Shishkin.

Successful in the Sky Bet Supreme Novices’ Hurdle at the 2020 Cheltenham Festival, chasing was always going to be the six-year-old’s game and he made the perfect start to life over the larger obstacles at Kempton in November before landing the Wayward Lad in the same style the following month.

Now a best-priced 4-5 for the Arkle, he certainly looks to be another potential superstar in the ranks.

Talking of superstars, the master of Ballydoyle, Aidan O’Brien, is no stranger to training some of the sport’s icons.

From Istabraq to Galileo, from Yeats to Magical, team Ballydoyle and the Coolmore operation have a wealth of resources at their disposal as they aim to again land the British and Irish Classics in 2021.

One of their main hopes looks to be High Definition who created quite the impression when staying on from a mile back to land the Group Two Beresford Stakes at the Curragh in September.

Remarkably, he was a 20th winner in the contest for O’Brien and he would become the first horse since Sea The Stars in 2008 to do the Beresford-Derby double.

Interestingly, none of O’Brien’s other 19 winners of the contest went on to win the Derby. Maybe in 2021, that record will be broken.

One of the real success stories of 2020. A breakthrough season and then some for Doyle who was targeting Group-race glory at the start of the year, and has now ridden her record number of winners in a calendar year, has enjoyed multiple Pattern-race success and crowned this defining season with Group One and Group Two victories on QIPCO British Champions Day.

Doyle’s achievements have transcended racing, as highlighted by her landing the Sunday Times Sportswoman of the Year award and her third-place finish in the 2020 BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award.

The first person to be nominated for the award in the sport since Sir AP McCoy’s victory in 2010, Doyle epitomises positive values.

Hard-working, honest and driven, Doyle, along with her boyfriend Tom Marquand, are among a raft of young jockeys taking the sport to new heights and attracting new audiences. Their talents only look to set to blossom further in 2021.

The Blue Riband event of National Hunt Racing – the Cheltenham Gold Cup.

Won by some of the sport’s all-time greats, Al Boum Photo bids to join a famous pantheon of winners by becoming a three-time winner of the Cheltenham showpiece.

The Willie Mullins-trained inmate is attempting to emulate Best Mate’s three successive victories in the contest between 2002 and 2004. He is set to return in the new year with his usual run at Tramore on New Year’s Day, before heading straight to Prestbury Park in March where he will bid to create history.

A contest we were denied in 2020 when both horses were ruled out of the two-mile chasing championship through injury.

That seemed to leave the route to victory clear for Defi Du Seuil, but he disappointed in the Grade One contest behind Politologue.

Chacun Pour Soi is fragile, but was sparkling on his return to action in the Hilly Way Chase and will bid to provide Willie Mullins with a first victory in the Betway Queen Mother Champion Chase.

Altior was defeated on his return in the Desert Orchid this season, but Nicky Henderson is certain something was amiss with his stable star, and he could bid to get back on track in the Game Spirit.

He would be chasing a fifth win at the Cheltenham Festival and a third win in the Champion Chase, should he line-up in the two-mile contest in March.

“Super Strad” has lit up the staying division on the Flat in recent years.

A winner of three Ascot Gold Cups, four Goodwood Cups, two Yorkshire Cups and Two Lonsdale Cups amongst other big-race victories, he looks set for one final swansong season in 2021.

His main aim will be to emulate the mighty Yeats with a fourth win in the Royal Ascot highlight.

His facile success in the 2020 renewal will live long in the memory and despite his advancing years, he looks well-placed to enter sporting folklore in June.

‘Faugheen The Machine’ – a true racing superstar who is clearly nearing the end of his career. He brought the roof down at the Dublin Racing Festival at Leopardstown in February when winning the Flogas Novice Chase and was then very far from disgraced when third behind Samcro in the Marsh Chase.

He will turn 13 on New Year’s Day, an injury setback has ruled him out of running over the Christmas period, and it looks likely that this could be his final swansong.

A horse who has given so much to the sport, Faugheen has won 17 of his 26 races, amassed over £1.1 million in prize money and secured 11 Grade One wins. A superstar who we should cherish before retirement.