Paul Nicholls, Richard Johnson and Katie Walsh on this year's big questions

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Does the Cheltenham Festival exert too much of a gravitational pull on the rest of the season?

Richard Johnson, four-time champion jockey There’s no doubt the pull of the festival is very big indeed, but I see that as a good thing for racing. Any sport needs one major highlight that everyone aims towards, and that applies to fans as well. It should be celebrated that people are so excited about competing at Cheltenham.

Katie Walsh, Irish Grand National-winning jockey Cheltenham is the Olympics of our sport and, nine times out of ten, it’s where every owner, trainer and jockey wants to end up. We all need something to aim at. In jump racing that’s the Cheltenham Festival and I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

Paul Nicholls, 12-time champion trainer There’s too much focus on the festival. You can be blinded into believing it’s all that matters. It’s fantastic if you have horses good enough to run there but some fantastic races and meetings take place before and after the festival. Not running Clan Des Obeaux and Monmiral at the festival did us no harm last season and we’ll keep an open mind again.

Cheltenham Festival: too much focus on the meeting says Paul NichollsCredit: Alan Crowhurst (Getty Images)

Lizzie Kelly, retired jockey and TalkSport broadcaster I think it has. We now overlook too many good races. Look at a horse like Sea The Stars. What was so amazing about him was he won six Group 1 races across six months. You wouldn’t see that happening over jumps, which is a shame. If all that matters in a whole season in one seven-minute race, we’re really not getting a lot of bang for our buck.

Nick Luck, broadcaster It does, but is that necessarily a bad thing? Would the field sizes in some of the Graded races leading up to the festival be significantly larger were it not for the festival? I’m not so sure they would. While constant references to the festival in October can be a bit wearing, there’s no doubt it’s the event that by a mile has been most important to the sport both commercially and in attracting a bigger fan base.

What do you make of the idea of a five-day Cheltenham Festival?

RJ Jockeys would be delighted to see it go to five days because it would provide more opportunities to ride a winner. Royal Ascot and Punchestown have both gone to five days without any problem. In the case of Cheltenham you also have to remember they would only need two more races, so there would be no chance of flooding the festival with lots of poor races. People seem to love that meeting and I think we should make the most of it.

KW I loved it when the festival was staged over three days. I was sad to see it go to four and I don’t think five is the answer. The festival makes an awful lot of money – and I understand the need for that – but there’s no doubt that making it bigger has had a negative impact on the quality of the racing. We want to see the championship horses taking each other on and we shouldn’t be providing opportunities for them to avoid each other.

PN We now have four fantastic days of racing and that’s enough. As far as I’m concerned, five would be a nightmare. The Cheltenham Festival is supposed to be a real championship meeting and to keep it that way you have to avoid diluting what we’ve already got. I can see there are commercial reasons to expand but those factors will always be there. You have to think about what is in the best interests of the sport – and for me that means staying at four days.

LK It’s a big no from me. I think a four-day festival is great and the balance of the meeting is now perfect. Going to five days would dilute the meeting. It would also take us to the Saturday, and from my TalkSport experience I know that if you put racing up against football it doesn’t win.

NL I really am open-minded on this one. I don’t crave a fifth day but I also don’t completely hate the idea and would like to see some projected numbers over how much revenue a fifth day would generate. I don’t sense there’s a great appetite for adding a bunch of new races, and I’m not sure there are enough good horses to warrant that anyway, but if you had six races over five days the argument that quality is being diluted would be pretty thin.

Can Britain close the gap on Ireland after last season’s festival pasting?

RJ I’m not sure it can get any worse! Ireland had an amazing time last season and there’s no doubt Ireland’s trainers appear to have the majority of the best horses. The power lies in Ireland but I remember when things were the other way around. I’m sure it will take more than one season to turn the tide but I’m also sure we’ll perform better this season.

KW You can be sure Britain won’t close the gap this season, given Ireland has almost all the top horses and last season’s leading novices. However, two or three years from now the shoe could be on the other foot. Ireland has been very well supported by a lot of British-based owners, which has helped, but it’s also the case that our best horses have just been very well bought.

'You can be sure Britain won't close the gap this season,' says Katie WalshCredit: Michael Steele (Getty Images)

PN Of course Britain can close the gap but it won’t happen overnight. You only have to look at the ante-post betting on the big festival races to see that. This season is going to be every bit as tough for Britain as was last season. You can’t win the Premier League without the best football team but it can take years to create that team. You can’t simply wave a magic wand and expect things to be different overnight.

LK I left Cheltenham in March in a state of distress, so I hope it’s not going to be another ‘greenwash’. It’s going to be difficult for Britain, but it has been getting harder for a number of years now, the reason being the Irish are better at sourcing the raw material. I think another factor is during the months before the festival we have so much racing that the top horses can easily avoid each other, which doesn’t help them when they get to the festival. Our horses aren’t as battle-hardened as the Irish, which I feel is a big factor.

NL Possibly a little but not a lot. We’re not going to close the gap any time soon. If you look back to Shishkin’s Supreme Novices’ Hurdle in 2020, there were only four British stables represented, which tells me what happened last season was hardly against the run of play. Given everything went absolutely right for Ireland in 2021, it’s hard to think Britain won’t claw a few back numerically in 2022, but the imbalance is set to remain for a good few years.

Would Britain benefit from a Dublin Racing Festival equivalent?

RJ I don’t think so. Over the winter we already have enough showpiece meetings and prep races for the Grade 1 horses. Britain’s problem right now is not a lack of top races but a lack of top horses.

KW It probably would be helpful but only if the prize-money matched Ireland’s and you had every race worth at least £100,000. The reality is it’s the prize-money that makes the Dublin Racing Festival but Britain’s prize-money just isn’t good enough to persuade the top owners and trainers to run the best horses against each other. Even the prize-money at the Cheltenham Festival isn’t exactly off the charts.

PN It’s easy to say yes, and I’ve always thought there might be scope for a big two-day meeting at Newbury, but I’m sure it would be a logistical nightmare to make it happen. Back when I was winning all those Gold Cups and World Hurdles, our horses always had plenty of great prep races that they ran in and won. Creating new races won’t make Britain any more competitive and something like the Dublin Racing Festival isn’t going to make a massive difference.

LK I think it would be good to have a winter festival that moved us away from thinking it was all about one week in March. Personally, though, I would prefer to see any new festival staged around Christmas because I think the timing relative to Cheltenham would be better. We don’t want people picking one of the two festivals over the other. I think at Christmas you’re also more likely to give the mudlarks the sort of chance they aren’t as likely to get in the spring.

NL No. It would simply be a marketing exercise. I don’t believe you would end up with better races because the number of additional horses you would attract would be minute. I’m in favour of the British and Irish programmes being more closely aligned as opposed to being driven further apart, so what I would like to see is an increase in the number of British horses running at the Dublin Racing Festival.

Do you see anyone challenging Nicholls or Mullins for the titles in Britain and Ireland?

RJ They are clearly the two to beat, particularly Willie Mullins. The quality he has is unbelievable. Henry de Bromhead also has an incredibly strong string, and the likes of Joseph O’Brien and Gordon Elliott will always have plenty of good horses, but Willie is clearly on top. In Britain Paul Nicholls led the way last season and I know from chatting with Harry Cobden that the feeling is they are very strong once again.

KW Not this season. Willie Mullins is already so far ahead in Ireland and we all know he’s only just starting to get warmed up. I can’t see Paul Nicholls losing his title, either.

Wille Mullins: the panel think the title will head to Closutton againCredit: Patrick McCann (racingpost.com/photos)

PN Let’s go to Ireland first! Gordon Elliott and Henry de Bromhead are the only two people who could possibly challenge Willie but I think he’ll be very hard to beat. Nicky Henderson and Dan Skelton have strong teams here, and if anyone is going to take the title off us it will be one of those two, but I would like to think we’ll be hard to beat.

LK I can’t see anyone challenging Willie Mullins and I think the same is true when it comes to Paul Nicholls. They both look fairly safe – but you can guarantee they won’t approach the coming months in any way complacent.

NL It will be very hard for Paul Nicholls to be beaten. The most striking thing about his numbers last season was the increase in volume of runners, while his rivals stayed largely the same. He went forward, while others largely stood still. In Ireland I think everything would have to go right for Henry de Bromhead to lay down a challenge, while Gordon Elliott is this season bound to be on the back foot. Willie Mullins just never stops – plus he is always so dominant at the Dublin Racing Festival and Punchestown festival.

Who do you fancy for the Gold Cup?

RJ Chantry House is still unexposed and with the potential to improve further. He looks like he could be the best of the British but there’s no doubt Ireland has the most powerful hand and there’s no reason to believe Minella Indo won’t be the one to beat again.

KW It will probably go to Henry de Bromhead but I think it’s down to the run of the race as to whether he’ll win it with Minella Indo or A Plus Tard. I don’t think a lot of the horses who are prominent in the betting are good enough and we now don’t have Monkfish, who was disappointing after the Dublin Racing Festival anyway. If you really dig into Envoi Allen’s form over fences he didn’t actually beat a lot and I think that prior to Cheltenham he had been extremely well placed by Gordon Elliott. He needs to do better if he’s going to be a Gold Cup horse.

PN With Monkfish out for the season there are no serious novices coming through, so I think Minella Indo could be the one again. Cheltenham suits him and so does the Gold Cup trip, which means he has all the attributes. Nothing jumps out at me as one to beat him. Clan Des Obeaux won’t be entered and I might not even have a Gold Cup horse unless one of mine raises the bar by a long way.

LK I still think Envoi Allen is a seriously nice horse. Obviously what happened at Cheltenham was hugely disappointing but until then he had looked imperious and I still think he is one to follow. I was also interested to read that Willie Mullins wants to give Al Boum Photo a busier campaign. That would suggest he feels he didn’t get it right last season – although Willie is a master, so I would never say that!

NL You would need a crystal ball to find a horse who might make rapid progress to become a serious Gold Cup contender because last season’s novices aren’t inspiring. If I was to have a bet now it would be A Plus Tard. I felt everything went perfectly for Minella Indo in last season’s Gold Cup, whereas A Plus Tard was forced to cover a little extra ground at crucial times. They weren’t separated by a huge amount and I’m not sure there should be four points between them in the betting.

And the Champion Hurdle?

RJ I love Honeysuckle and I love her attitude. She has everything and showed everybody how good she is in the Champion Hurdle. She must be the one to beat but there’s always the chance for one of last season’s novices to come on in leaps and bounds.

KW Honeysuckle has been there and done it – and I think she’ll do it again. For me, it’s Honeysuckle all day long. Her jumping is still getting quicker and slicker – she used to be a little bit clean and high – and that improvement was one of the reasons she was so exceptional at Cheltenham. She was different gravy that day, and although she was probably at her weakest at Punchestown she still won.

PN Honeysuckle deserves to be the hot favourite. I see Monmiral as a staying chaser, which is what his breeding suggests he should be. Ruby Walsh always used to say to me that juveniles who stayed as well as he did would end up wanting three miles. Personally, I would be surprised if he proves to be a Champion Hurdle horse, but if he performs well at Newcastle I might change my mind.

Monmiral: potential dark horse for the Champion HurdleCredit: John Grossick (racingpost.com/photos)

LK I’m really looking forward to seeing Ferny Hollow, given he has already beaten Bob Olinger and Appreciate It, although it sounds as though he might go chasing. Realistically, we have seen no chinks in the armour of Honeysuckle. They aren’t afraid of running her and she continues to be phenomenal. I can’t see any reasons to doubt her.

NL I know Willie Mullins has said Appreciate It is likelier to run over fences but I’m hoping he has a change of heart when looking at the potential Champion Hurdle line-up. I’m not going to say anything negative about Honeysuckle, who was clearly brilliant last season, but Appreciate It won the Supreme by 24 lengths. It may not have been the best Supreme ever run but Appreciate It looked an absolute monster. I also don’t think it would take much for the Cesarewitch winner Buzz to make up into a Champion Hurdle horse. Given the lack of opposition in the British trials, his price could end up shortening quite a bit.

If you had to back one horse for one race this season, who would it be?

RJ Thyme Hill in the Stayers’ Hurdle. My biggest disappointment last season was that due to a niggly problem he didn’t get to Cheltenham, although it was great for everyone connected with the horse that he went to Aintree and won. He is very much the horse I’m going to miss riding most – and I don’t think he has finished improving yet.

KW Honeysuckle in the Champion Hurdle. Some horses need the ball to bounce right or to be ridden a certain way – but not Honeysuckle. She is straightforward, she’ll be getting stronger and I think she has it all.

PN Clan Des Obeaux in the King George. If you could see him now you would know he’s as good as ever. The King George is the right race for him. It didn’t work out last year as he had a hard race at Haydock and got a bit behind but this time he won’t have a run beforehand and will go there fresh, which will be a big plus. Putting on cheekpieces has also brought about massive improvement. Mr [Paul] Vogt, who owns Frodon, will quite rightly have very different ideas about the King George outcome, and Frodon being Frodon he could well surprise us. Why don’t I make it a one-two forecast and say Clan to beat Frodon!

Ontheropes: could take some stopping in the Ladbrokes Trophy says Lizzie KellyCredit: Patrick McCann (racingpost.com/photos)

LK Willie Mullins won the Munster National with Total Recall, who then came to Britain and followed up in the Ladbrokes Trophy. Willie has a similar type in Ontheropes, who was really impressive when he won the Munster National earlier this month. I could definitely see him going to Newbury and completing that same double.

NL I’m hoping Paul Nicholls swerves a clash with A Plus Tard in the Betfair Chase and instead runs Next Destination in the Ladbrokes Trophy. The race looks tailormade for him. He’s very tough, sees out the trip extremely well and would bring a touch of class to the contest. I think he would have an outstanding chance.
Interviews by senior writer Lee Mottershead

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The 2021-22 jumps season calendar: the major races by division (PDF)

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