The Michael O’Sullivan Festival will live long in the memory

Last week’s Cheltenham Festival blew me away with its unrelenting high drama and plot twist, after plot twist. I still cannot get my head around the fact that the two horses Michael O’Sullivan had ridden to win at the 2023 Festival poignantly came out and won back-to-back races at this year’s Festival.

The opening race of the Festival was renamed in Michael’s honour, but as the week went on it became apparent that Michael’s presence was everywhere.

It really felt all week as if Michael was looking down on Cheltenham and pulling the strings. Horses and people he had close associations with were winning race after race.

If it was indeed the case that Michael was orchestrating the week, we can be fairly certain that he wasn’t a punter. Some of the results were simply bizarre. Lossiemouth and Kopek Des Bordes were the only two of the seven odds-on favourites to win during the week with Majborough, Constitution Hill, Ballyburn, Jonbon and Galopin Des Champs all failing for various reasons. And then there was the last flight fall for State Man when he had back-to-back Champion Hurdles sewn up.

Isn’t it ridiculous that Willie Mullins could have Galopin Des Champs, State Man, Ballyburn and Majborough all beaten and still come away with ten winners over the four days. His dominance is astounding. He saddled 11 of the 17 runners in the Triumph Hurdle and then had the audacity to win it with a 100/1 chance that was having its first start over hurdles.

You would think there would be a rule about that. Not so long ago Gina Mangan was prohibited from riding in the Derby because she hadn’t enough experience, yet three juvenile hurdlers were allowed to make their jumping debuts in a Grade 1 race on one of the biggest days for the sport, watched by millions around the world. It could have been a recipe for disaster.

Speaking of disasters, the starts all week were woeful. I’m sure it’s a very difficult job at the best of times, more so when the races are as competitive as they are at Cheltenham with every rider looking for a good early position, but a fair start for your horse is the least you expect and for those that didn’t receive that it was understandably frustrating.

Overall it was yet again a most successful Festival from an Irish perspective with 20 Irish-trained winners in total, representing 9 different trainers.

There were also 1-2-3s for Ireland in 9 separate races including a 1-2-3-4 in the Gold Cup, the first five home in the Supreme and first six home in both the Stayers’ Hurdle and Brown Advisory.

It is always interesting to see how many trainers try something new with their horses at festivals like Cheltenham in the hope that it will make a difference to their performance.

In total 11 of the 28 winners across the festival wore an aid that was published at the time of declaration, but 9 other horses wore earplugs during their races and for some reason these aids are not made public at the time of declaration.

It is a pity that the earlpugs are not considered in the same category as the other aids as it would have been nice to know this information beforehand. Two whopping priced winners in Poniros (100/1) and Lecky Watson (20/1) were both fitted with earplugs.

Of less significance in finding winners is the practice of putting a Red Hood on horses on the way to the start of races, another aid that is not made public at declaration time. Out of the 66 horses that wore them to post at Cheltenham just two won, Jango Baie and Myretown, though another winner, Puturhandstogether, did wear a Red Hood in the parade ring prior to his victory.

I’m not convinced that all the changes made to the race programme this year had a positive impact. The National Hunt Chase certainly attracted more runners as a handicap, but it was somewhat sad to see just two Amateur riders among the field of 18 in a race that was for so long associated with them, particularly so when 12 of the runners carried more than 11st.

Last year the three Grade 1 Novice chases - Arkle, Brown Advisory and Turners - had field sizes of 10, 6 and 9 respectively with the favourites priced up at 2/1, 8/13 and 5/2JF. This year, with the Turners scrapped, we had just the Arkle (5 runners and a 1/2 favourite) and the Brown Advisory (7 runners and a 4/7 favourite). Not exactly progress.

Lastly, the biggest issue arising out of last week’s Festival is the alarming drop in attendance.

As recently as 2022 280,000 people attended across the four days. In 2023 that figure had dropped to 240,000. Last year 230,000 and this year the overall attendance had dipped again to 218,839.

The fact that Gold Cup Day continues to attract a near sellout crowd of largely non-core fans somewhat papers over the cracks, but over 60,000 people that attended the first post-Covid Festival in 2022 have been lost in just three years. Even the drop of over 10,000 customers from last year alone is deeply worrying.

We know there are numerous contributing factors, but the big one is price. Admission prices, food and beverage prices and the price gouging going on in the accommodation sector around the Cheltenham area are killing the Festival. The question is what will the organisers do about it? A few more tweaks to the race programme certainly won’t cut it.

Seeing a well-backed Irish winner of the Champion Bumper return to an almost deserted enclosure is all the evidence needed to realise that Cheltenham urgently needs to reconnect with its core fanbase.