O'Leary calls for hurdling equivalent of Ryanair Chase at Cheltenham Festival

Michael O’Leary has expressed a desire to see a revamping of the Cheltenham Festival programme that would eradicate some of the “flab” and make room for a hurdling equivalent of the Ryanair Chase.

On the day when Ryanair renewed its sponsorship of the two-mile-five-furlong Grade 1 and pledged to increase the total prize fund from £350,000 to £400,000 by the end of the new five-year deal in 2022, O’Leary also staunchly defended the reputation of the Ryanair Chase as more than a consolation race for horses deemed not ready for the Gold Cup or too slow for the Queen Mother Champion Chase.

“I think that’s very unfair,” O’Leary said in response to the frequent criticism of the race’s place in the festival schedule.

Un De Sceaux and Ruby Walsh on the way to Ryanair success last season

“It has been won by Vautour, Un De Sceaux, Cue Card and Imperial Commander; he won a Gold Cup subsequently, and so did Don Cossack, who was beaten in a Ryanair.

“That is just the usual hidebound old shite. Cheltenham is big enough to have championship races over the three distances, and if there is one gap that they have to fill there at the moment it is a championship hurdle over two and a half miles or two miles and five furlongs.

“I don’t have any truck with this argument about the Ryanair Chase diluting the Gold Cup – it doesn’t. Was Don Cossack’s Gold Cup any the worse because Vautour wasn’t there? I don’t think it was.”

O’Leary has been outspoken in his belief that mares should compete on level terms at the highest level and expressed the view that the only reason he has acquired high-class female prospects like Apple’s Jade is because a programme of races has been created for them.

Speaking to the Racing Post, he insisted that some of the less prestigious events should be removed in exchange for a programme that would place even more of an emphasis on quality.

“I’d get rid of the flab,” he stated. “The Cheltenham programme is great, but instead of having a mares’ novices’ beginners’ race for conditionals or amateur jockeys or whatever, there should be six important hurdles and six important chases.

“There are enough good horses there to have a championship two-mile hurdle, a two-and-a-half-mile hurdle and a three-mile hurdle, same as there is over fences, and it should be the same for the novices. Why do the two-and-a-half-milers have to go to Liverpool?”

O’Leary has had the runner-up on four occasions in the Ryanair Chase, including Sub Lieutenant, who chased home Un De Sceaux last year.

Willie Mullins’ reigning champion is a top-priced 7-2 market leader to retain his crown in March, but the Ryanair chief does expect to have another stab at breaking his duck in his own race, although plans remain fluid at this stage for his staying chasers.

The airline’s sponsorship of the race, which will extend to 16 years by 2022, has reduced the Sun Bets Stayers' Hurdle to a supporting role for a first time since it spearheaded events on day three when the festival became a four-day extravaganza in 2005, and O’Leary said: “Money talks, although I suspect these might be the last five years.

Sub Lieutenant: chased home Un De Sceaux in Ryanair Chase last seasonCredit: Alain Barr

“By the time this deal is up, we’ll have done the guts of 20 years, which is a long stint. From a Ryanair point of view, it is an important sponsorship. We carry a lot of people to and from Cheltenham and all the different bloodstock centres, so we make a lot of money out of Cheltenham and it is important to be seen to put something back in and reinvest some of that money into sponsorship.

“The great thing about Cheltenham is that you get a six-month build- up in terms of mentions and discussion. We google Ryanair and, from September through until February, the number of daily mentions is huge.

"Now, it might be because of disappointment about something or other being too slow for the Champion Chase or not staying well enough for the Gold Cup so will finish up in the Ryanair, but it all counts.

"Look at Un De Sceaux last weekend – it was great. We got another four or five ‘Ryanair Chase’ bangs out of that, and that’s what it’s all about.”

Money talks as Ryanair trumps Stayers' for top Thursday billing

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