Two years ago this week, Sandown’s Tingle Creek Chase needed no marketing. With Moscow Flyer, Azertyuiop and Well Chief in opposition, it promised much and delivered even more — a spectacular collision of the fastest steeplechasers around. They were split by barely a length and there are those who swear to this day they have never seen a finer race.
The rematch at Cheltenham in March was, for many, the highlight of the first four-day Festival and we marvelled once again at how, unfailingly, it is the top two-mile chases that can shred the nerves more exquisitely than any other code of the sport.
Even allowing for the attritional nature of jump racing, few would have believed that the next Tingle Creek would feature none of those three horses. Now, both Moscow Flyer and Azertyuiop have entered retirement and Well Chief has not raced since the final day of the 2004-5 season.
In their absence, the two-mile division is either in transition or, more controversially, in decline. Sandown and William Hill, the Tingle Creek sponsor, will point with some satisfaction to a five-day entry of 14 for Saturday’s renewal but it would be conspicuously short on proven stars but for the unexpected inclusion of Kauto Star.
Last season’s winner is a still better horse since being tried over longer distances and Paul Nicholls, his trainer, reflected that he had “been trying to win a Champion Chase with a Gold Cup horse”. As Kauto Star is favourite for the King George VI Chase, three weeks later, it seems perplexing that he is even in the mix for Saturday.
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Nicholls insisted yesterday that it was “only a tentative entry”, though once he studies the potential opposition he may easily be tempted to run. Newmill, the Champion Chase winner last March, has not been entered, leaving Fota Island and Central House as the reliable but unexceptional gauges for last year’s top novices to aim at.
In leaving his options open for this week, Nicholls made one thing very clear. “Whether or not Kauto runs at Sandown, his targets remain the King George and the Gold Cup — there will be no going back to two miles at Cheltenham.”
So the stage is clear for Voy Por Ustedes and Foreman, who shared the two-mile novice events at Cheltenham and Aintree in the spring. If this division is not suddenly to take a back seat, in terms of public anticipation, both of them need to make swift and serious graduation.
Moscow Flyer may dominate the recent memory, and rightly so as one of the greatest of all chasers, but a decade ago the two-mile calendar was equally appealing. The likes of Viking Flagship, Martha’s Son, One Man and Deep Sensation provided some epic contests and attained a public affection denied to most.
We must not, of course, become too misty-eyed. It is worth pointing out that, in the late 1980s, the division would have seemed startlingly bare but for the enduring attraction of Desert Orchid. The Tingle Creek, then run as a limited handicap worth less than £10,000 to the winner, tended to draw fields of four or five.
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What has happened in recent years is that the best two-mile novices have quickly stepped up in trip. Best Mate, Kicking King and War Of Attrition all fall into this category and Monet’s Garden is now a fourth. Modern Gold Cup winners need class and speed as well as stamina.
Another way in which two-mile chasing is missing out is financial incentives. Betfair set the ball rolling last year with their £1 million bonus for any horse winning the new Haydock three-mile chase in November, the King George and the Gold Cup. No wonder Kauto Star is following that rainbow.
This season, two bookmakers have instituted huge bonus schemes for two-mile hurdlers. Competition has inevitably intensified. Perhaps some enterprising company could construct a similar triple crown for the two-mile chasers, reinvigorating fields for the most exciting spectacle racing can offer.