Racing: Vanessa Binnie Ryle

It is exactly four weeks to go until the first day of what has now come to be the centre of the jumps racing universe. Four weeks until hundreds of thousands gather at Prestbury Park in the Cotswolds for the exciting, raucous and totally enthralling meeting of the year.

To most people within the jumps racing game Cheltenham is where it is at. We gamble, cheer, cry, moan, scream and gamble a bit more our way through the winter season enjoying the big days but always with one beady eye on the Festival. 

So all season we build up to spending quality time with our love. We have dalliances with other meetings, other races and other tracks throughout the year but nothing matches the feeling Cheltenham gives us.

Those who are in with a shout of getting on the invite list to Cheltenham in March go into battle with other possible suitors, but only the best get there, only the most talented earn their right to make memories with the Cheltenham Festival. And trust me, if you’re really good enough you will make the cut, you will earn the Golden Ticket and be on the most coverted guest list in Jump Racing.

But from my point of view, purely as an avid racing fan, I enjoy the fact that Cheltenham is elitist and the be all and end all for most, that the season builds to one almighty climax and that as a result you can tune in to the four days of The Festival safe in the knowledge that you are seeing the best of the best available at that time and what you’re viewing is someone’s dream unfolding, crashing out or coming true right in front of you.

The Cheltenham Festival should be for the equine elite, it should be a Championship week because it then gives us a narrative for the whole season, something to string each piece of the jigsaw together with, a way to tell and (more importantly) sell the story of the jump racing season to a wider audience.

The Festival is the first of three big jump racing meeting in the spring – it is closely followed by the Aintree National Meeting and then a few weeks later we have the marathon that is the Punchestown Festival too. There are Grade One races to be won there as well as big handicaps and top prize money. By the big guns targeting Cheltenham so heavily I actually believe it gives smaller trainers a chance to get their hands on great prizes elsewhere.

I am not for a minute suggesting that smaller trainers don’t deserve their shot at Cheltenham glory – they absolutely do, with the horses good enough to go, and no one loves a smaller yard success story more than me. But I can’t see Cheltenham becoming any less elitist in the near future, in fact quite the opposite, so perhaps a silver lining to this happening in our sport is that a bright, forward thinking, smaller trainer could in fact utilise the change to their advantage.”

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