What happened to the British horses at Cheltenham

Embarrassing week for all concerned .
Irish Point to Points the main reason for me . Early days makes the horses ,
More competitive & in all honesty better trainers , would WP be champion trainer in GB if he kept up the assault on top races all year round , pretty easily imo.
Owners will easily pay £200,000+ - £400,000+ for the top quality purchases from IRE & of course France ...never England , Scotland or Wales ,
For some reason their horses hcp marks looked 1 stone high during Cheltenham compared to Ireland
& of course good old Red Mills feeds 😂

I don’t think there’s any hidden reasons . We knew going in the Irish were long odds on winning , Trainer & jockey , it’s been getting this way for a long while .

When I started backing horses my memory of the UK was Martin Pipe winning most of the card followed by Hobbs , obviously today 99% are all-round better jumps trainers globally thanks to lessons learnt . Simply
Across the Irish Sea we have horses in every other field , quality breeding & massive quantity ( obviously many don’t make it past ptps )
competitiveness & competition in the bread & butter Irish PTP’s . Imo That gives PACE to these early races & obviously faster times ... stopwatches don’t lie owners & trainers buy by the clock $$$$ , more so than previously breeding ,
The earlier you run races to Speed / jumping the more you end up with Cheltenham horses . IRELAND does both IRELAND WINS .

Nicky Henderson “ Spinter Sacre’s brother is not Sprinter Sacre “ clock over breeding .

With the likes of 🇬🇧Chev Park Stud switching to Ireland how can you bridge the gap it only widens , I know if I had 1/4 of a million to purchase a Cheltenham horse I know which route I’d be going personally.

Now one man who had a bad Cheltenham by his standards is staying loyal atm , interesting recruit unleashed in a bumper watching brief .

WELL HELLO JONBON

JP McManus's £570,000 buy a full brother to Douvan could make his rules debut at Newbury on Saturday.

mainly Henderson/ JJ O’Neill A King & P Nicholls to name but a few .
Giving Nicky Henderson Jan Bon ( most expensive NH purchase ) he could have easily have kept it that side of the Irish Sea & sent it to Mr Mullins ,
m.facebook.com/Cheltmental/videos/774198133311118/

If you want to try and understand why the English are so far behind the Irish, just comprehend that Wilde About Oscar is now rated 150

That’s the rating given to Bob Olinger before he won the Ballymore...

Sky pirate is 160, he got absolutely trounced by all mankind getting 3lbs, who in turn got annihilated by shsikin on the bridle. Somehow shishkin only comes out 9lbs better then sky pirate? Madness

Twitter is full of the deferential between British & Irish handicap markings , will the BHA listen

In the 1980s , the Irish came home with one winner during Cheltenham week .

14:50 Newbury 27 Mar 2021
BetVictor Novices' Handicap Hurdle
GBB Race | Class 2 | 4YO plus
Winner £10,892 - 19 entered to run
0-150 handicap

14:20 Newbury 27 Mar 2021
BetVictor Conditional Jockeys' Veterans' Handicap Chase
Class 2 | 10YO plus
Winner £25,024 - 18 entered to run

Something seriously wrong when 10-13 year old horses are getting the lions share of the prize £££, Both sponsorship, bet victor , reason simply they make more ££ from these teenage horse handicap races through punters than the 4yearold , form , lottery

Other side of the coin ..
Iv been moaning ages about the french flat prize ££ compared to English even on the aw , today I backed Archie Watson’s France 🇫🇷 AW Runner Laos 3rd btn 1-1/4 L by an exciting looking F Head Runner ADHAMO (IRE) 10/3
M Guyon Fre Head
2nd (8) Keyflower 10/1 flew home for 2nd .. our winners on the AW are lucky to get 3k for winning , Archie comes home with more £ than home winner and no Hcp difference. Well hcp horse mayb .. can’t blame them for targeting the prize money but embarrassing 🇬🇧 ,
PRIZE MONEY
1st:
€22,051.00
2nd:
€7,000.00
3rd:
€3,500.00
4th:
€2,451.00

Cheveley Park Stud’s managing director Chris Richardson believes prize-money is “the big problem” in British racing and revealed it was a factor in the majority of the owner’s star jumps horses being trained in Ireland.

The 23-5 beating that the Irish horses gave Britain overall at the festival shouldn't have been a shock. This has been coming for a while.

I've been saying for five or six years that I can't really compete, and that's why I've been looking more and more to the Flat.

I can't buy these Grade 1 horses and we're taking on Ferraris with Fords. When Anthony Bromley and I have been at the boutique sales, I'd say that 80 per cent of the top lots have been going to Ireland and we're seeing the results now.

Until things change dramatically with prize-money in British racing, it's going to stay this way. We need to get our house in order as we're running for such poor reward. Owners are showing they are not going to put up with it and several now have their horses trained in Ireland. Over there you're getting £10,000 for a maiden hurdle, whereas we're not getting much more than that in a Graded race.

We have far too much moderate racing, and there will come a point when the Flat goes the same way – we can't just live on heritage and history.

I went to Cheltenham on the Wednesday and the Friday and the lack of atmosphere with no crowd showed just how important it is to get racegoers back as soon as possible.

But they got the meeting on, that's the main thing, and let's hope we're back to normal next year – although I think the results will still be the same.
Alan King