Ruby Walsh: my thoughts on the Cheltenham Festival changes

Ruby Walsh expects the changes to the Cheltenham Festival programme to bolster competitiveness and field sizes beyond just the four days in the Cotswolds.

Six key alterations have been made to Festival contests, with the two-and-a-half-mile Turners Novices’ Chase replaced by a Grade Two limited novice handicap chase over the same trip and opening the National Hunt Chase, which has traditionally been contested by amateur riders, to professionals and turning it into a novice handicap chase for horses rated 0-145.

The Glenfarclas Cross County Chase will also move from a conditions race to a limited handicap, while the Ryanair Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle will no longer have a penalty structure, resulting in a level weights contest.

An alteration has been made to the Pertemps Final, with all winners of series qualifiers now guaranteed a run proved they are within the weights at the declaration stage, and all entries in non-novice Festival handicaps must now run four times over fences and five times over hurdles.

Walsh, who is the most successful Festival rider in history with 59 winners, was one of those consulted as part of the Jockey Club’s review and expects the decisions will impact the level of competition in March.

He said: “All the changes are geared towards making the races more competitive. The aim is to attract as many of the best horses as possible to run at the Cheltenham Festival and for them to run in the right races.

“Cheltenham is the pinnacle of jump racing and these changes help to maintain that. Of course there will be some people who think these changes go too far and there will be some who think they don’t go far enough. The important thing to remember is that those making these changes have done so in the best interests of jump racing and the Festival.”

Walsh pinpointed the handicap changes and the switch in the Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle as potentially having a benefit outside of Cheltenham.

He added: “The idea of a handicap is to give everybody a level chance, but unfortunately when you have limited information it is very hard to put the correct mark on some horses. By increasing the number of runs requirement, hopefully you will have more of the right horses in the right races.

“It should also increase competition and field sizes throughout the winter, which can’t be a bad thing.”

Paul Nicholls is a 14-times champion National Hunt trainer in Britain and has sent out 49 Festival winners, including four Cheltenham Gold Cups.

He said: “On the whole these changes sound very sensible. Everybody has different opinions and you cannot please everybody at the same time, but I think we have to try to make the racing as competitive as possible as that is what the Cheltenham Festival is all about.”