The imminence of Cheltenham and then the Grand National tends to scrub any consideration of Flat racing from most punters’ minds once February rolls around, but it is already less than 10 weeks until the 2,000 Guineas, the first Classic of the new season on turf, and there was some significant news around Britain’s richest day at the races last week with the announcement of a major upgrade to Champions Day at Ascot in October.
There was £4.3m up for grabs on Champions Day last year, which is not too far shy of the £4.93m on offer over the entire four days at Cheltenham next month, and the card will now boast no fewer than five Group One events after the Long Distance Cup’s promotion from Group Two status. The programme will also be extended to seven races with the addition of a new £250,000 contest for two-year-olds, which the track will hope to fast-track to Pattern status as swiftly as possible.
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But last week’s announcement also drew down the curtain on the British Champions Series (BCS), the 35 Group One and Group Two races at nine different courses earlier in the season which had been arranged into five categories – Sprint, Mile, Middle Distance, Long Distance and Fillies & Mares – with each supposedly offering a “narrative” path towards a race on the Champions Day card.
The need for an up-to-date narrative to keep people engaged, in fact, felt like a guiding principle of the BCS and Champions Day project when it was launched in 2011, yet the Series has now been consigned to history with all the focus instead shifting to one afternoon at Ascot in mid-October.
The major difference that most racegoers are likely to notice, if they notice at all, is the absence of a parade of placards bearing the competitors’ names and colours before each of the 35 BCS events. It might detract slightly from the sense of occasion, but with the possible exception of the printer who was turning them out, no one will shed many tears.
The BCS races are all well-established events at top-notch tracks that will simply go back to looking out for themselves. All the races concerned were, in any case, always part of the traditional story of the Flat season that led from the Guineas trials and Newmarket Classics to Epsom and Royal Ascot, and then on into the summer festivals at Newmarket, Goodwood, York and Doncaster.
But if all the time, effort and, above all, cash is now being lavished on a single day at Ascot, it does bring the make-do-and-mend position of Champions Day in the racing calendar into sharper relief.
Without rehashing all the debates over timing from 15 years ago while the concept was taking shape, Champions Day ended up in mid-October, with a race that had traditionally been staged at Newmarket as its centrepiece, because it was generally felt to be the least-worst option.
Ireland had already bagged a prime slot in early to mid-September for its Champions Weekend, while the late-September date for the precursor to Champions Day – the Festival of British Racing, where Frankie Dettori famously went through the card in 1996 – was much too close to Arc weekend in Paris. The politics of international race-programming, meanwhile, also meant that mid-October was likely to be the only date that the European Pattern Committee – which oversees and balances the schedule for the best horses – would rubber-stamp.
And so it is that in three of the past six seasons, the races on the round course – that will all be Group Ones from this year – have been switched to the tight inner circuit. Mud-spattered horses and riders winning by extended margins on a track where hurdlers will be racing in just a few weeks’ time is an odd way to celebrate the best of a summer sport, but needs must.
But it is not only the likelihood of regularly staging Champions Day on winter ground that makes mid-October a sub-optimal slot. Even if decent ground could be somehow guaranteed, Champions Day is still going to be stuck between Arc weekend in Paris a fortnight earlier and the Breeders’ Cup in the US two or three weeks later.
The Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe is Europe’s most prestigious and valuable all-aged race, while Arc weekend as a whole boasts eight Group One contests. The Breeders’ Cup Turf, meanwhile, all but guarantees a fast racing surface, and both are worth three times as much as the Champion Stakes. As a result, few of the elite middle-distance horses will be actively steered towards Ascot unless, as was the case this year with the gelding Calandagan, they are barred from running at Longchamp.
Plumpton: 1.40 Under The Sun 2.12 King Ulanda 2.45 Uallrightharry 3.15 Sole Solution 3.47 Jongleur D’Etoiles 4.22 Demoiselle Kap 4.52 Lyle View
Ayr: 2.25 Senor Lombardy 2.55 Mountain Molly 3.25 Doyen Du Bar 4.00 Bowensonfire 4.35 The Jeweller’s Pet 5.10 Triple Crown Ted.
Wolverhampton: 5.00 Urban Road 5.30 Rosenspur (nb) 6.00 Political Power 6.30 Marinakis 7.00 Busby 7.30 Sarafina Mshairi (nap) 8.00 Herkeios 8.30 Ray Gun.
In Ireland, meanwhile, Champions Weekend is struggling to break through with fans at around the same spot in the calendar where Britain’s Champions Day should arguably be.
It is an old argument and probably a dead one, and Champions Day is only one day among many highlights in the Flat season. With five Group Ones, a two-year-old race and an ultra-competitive handicap, this year’s card will also be as strong as it can possibly be – but still not as strong as it probably should be, given the size, significance and rich history of UK Flat racing.
