Cheltenham© Photo Healy Racing
The hoariest Cheltenham cliché of all is that it's 'Our Olympics.' Except it isn't. Not if you judge it by true 'Fastest, Highest, Longest & Strongest' standards. Because for an ultimate championship event it's remarkable how many questions are likely to be left hanging after next week's action. And they'll hang because the logistics of mounting a four day festival have resulted in a degree of filler which continues to dilute competition.
The impact of this is likely to be especially felt this year. National Hunt racing is attritional anyway but the number of absent stars this time really does highlight the comparative lack of depth at the top of a tree. Throw in the influence of a small group of powerful owners, able to disperse their horses among a range of options that would have been unimaginable before 2005, and there is an inevitable consequence for competition.
Ireland's senior handicapper Noel O'Brien has said a lot of championship races have been devalued, specifically pointing to how the JLT option means that, with Yorkhill's absent, Altior is expected to have little more than an Arkle penalty kick. They are the two outstanding novices yet we won't know who's the better because they won't clash. And they won't clash because Willie Mullins and Graham Wylie have a Grade 1 alternative, ostensibly there to fill in a supposed intermediate distance gap between the Arkle and the RSA, but really just to help pad out the festival.
It's not the just the JLT which delivers such 'pick n mix' ramifications. There is a single two-mile performer that could give Douvan at least the impression of a contest in the Champion Chase except not surprisingly Un De Sceaux will take up the Ryanair option which leaves his stable companion to an effective lap of honour. In turn, Un De Sceaux's Ryanair opposition will include Empire Of Dirt, a horse who would add to the Gold Cup field but is instead diverted to another 'in-between' race.
On balance the three Grade 1 novice hurdles justify their place in the festival, although an argument can be made the Albert Bartlett represents a very severe test for young horses. But what is the point of a mares allowance - which everyone agrees is a significant plus - if an alternative programme for those mares is squeezed into the festival programme?
Breeders have an argument in terms of more opportunities for mares. But surely not at the expense of competition at the sport's showpiece event. This isn't the flat: there doesn't have to be a division for everyone.
How, for instance, is the Triumph Hurdle supposed to be a truly championship event when the Fred Winter continues to be an alternative? How do some of the handicaps justify their existence at a supposed Olympics? Sound cases on the basis of tradition can be made for the County Hurdle and the Coral Cup but hardly the Pertemps. And the tradition factor can also be used in relation to the four-miler, the Foxhunters and maybe even the Grand Annual, but hardly others.
Opinions are still divided about the merits of the Cross-Country event but the Conditional Jockeys race continues to stick out like a sore thumb. So by any reasonable quality control standards there are at least half a dozen races that serve little or no function but to pad the festival out to four days. And while the commercial logic is undeniable, there is an inevitable consequence in terms of diluted championship standards which is supposedly the whole point of the exercise.
The dream of owning a festival winner is deep-rooted. But it is deep-rooted in a tradition that they are the hardest to come by. Cheltenham 2017 will hardly produce any 'one for everyone in the audience' scenario - although that might depend on what the audience is -but it is also likely to highlight just how ridiculous any commercial momentum towards extending the festival even further really is.
Speaking of the estimable Noel O'Brien, his statement that the BHA should publish their Irish National Hunt ratings puts it up to Phil Smith & Co: because failure to do so really will be a slap in the face to Ireland's officials. Given the political nature of these things, presumably a few chats have taken place behind the scenes in order for O'Brien to have spoken out.
Such publication would be both logical in terms of Irish horses being entered in Britain and politic on the back of current disquiet. And while it's hard to take some of the more extreme bleating that continues to surround this issue, there's also no doubt there are genuine inconsistencies over the handicapping of Irish trained horses in Britain.
Nevertheless I suspect, as in previous years, there will still be significant handicap success for the visitors next week, after which nothing will be said - until Aintree.
It may be heresy to talk flat racing a week prior to the National Hunt festival but the ludicrous decision to stage both the Derby and the second leg of 'Champions Weekend' at the Curragh in 2017 and 2018 continues to generate disquiet.
The Curragh board decision to run both shop-window events in front of a restricted 6,000 capacity on what is effectively a building site wasn't unanimous. For one, the Aga Khan's Irish representative, Pat Downes, has said he argued the track should be closed during construction.
But the Aga is just one of a handful of private investors, also including Coolmore, Godolphin, Moyglare and JP McManus, who own a third of the new Curragh company. The Turf Club still hold a third and so does the state, which, theoretically at least, is us, the public, the ones most affected by crowd restrictions and temporary facilities but who remain clearly irrelevant in racing's greater political scheme of things despite almost €22 million worth of state investment.
The logic of running two of the most high profile events of the year in 'hard-hat-land' is baffling. Or at least it is if you take the decision at face-value. Whatever way you look at it, it's a counter-productive call for all bar a select few: which makes the urge to ask 'Cui Bono' as irresistible as asking something else - who's really in charge here.
