GG Jumps Journal – GG in the Press Room at Sandown

It’s the flat season opener at Sandown, but the chat in the Sandown press room was purely about the jumps.

Joe BloGGs – On Racing’s Glorious Echo Chamber and the Seeking of Marginal Public Gains

We’re very good at being cynical within racing, but in this instance, it’s a narrative that’s worked.

Richard Hoiles on the Jumps Trainers’ Championship

Matt Chapman is hosting an auction for one of the vast hospitality parties enjoying their Friday afternoon off next door. His voice unsurprisingly booms; even when the tannoy blares over the stands, Chapman is still audible, but it does lend a sense of gravitas to the area of the course we are in.

Queen All Star wins the first to complete silence on the balcony. Who’s to say what money was down?

However, it is not the racing of the day that’s of interest, for all there are Classic clues to abound, as well as genuine Group race action either side. It is the build-up to what has, at least in racing’s circles, been a trainers’ title race for the ages.

There is a token announcement over the tannoy midway through the card about the Skelton-Mullins ding-dong. But my questions for the day revolve around what it means to those directly around me, and whether they have reverberated beyond white noise to those below.

Simon Holt, a voice familiar to anyone who has watched racing for 25 years, is extremely generous with his time from the get-go. He’s also keen to stress the impact this recently-ensued title race has had:

“I was at Plumpton over Easter and it became the Trainers’ Championship battleground. I’ve never known an atmosphere like it. Harry Skelton had two winners and on both rides he sort of punched the air. It was unheard of for winning at Plumpton really.”

“There have been a few mutterings among some trainer about Willie Mullins parachuting in and gatecrashing the championship, but it has really enlivened the last few weeks. What he achieved in the Grand National, to have the first, second, third, fifth and seventh, was sensational. It will be a surprise if he doesn’t win the big race tomorrow.”

Despite his 50% chance, on pure numerical logic alone, Mullins did not go on to win the bet365 Gold Cup, but swanned away with the championship either way. The positivity surrounding the impact on the sport was not an opinion Holt held alone either.

“We’re very good at being cynical within racing, but in this instance, it’s a narrative that’s worked,” concurs ITV’s lead commentator Richard Hoiles. “For some of the light that’s been shone on courses like Plumpton, and for the battle for the title between two sporting giants, it aids the profile of racing within the sporting environment.”

“I think it’s provided an absorbing narrative and I think overall the impact can only have been positive,” the Racing Post’s Lee Mottershead further confided, while also suggesting that this might not be the last time such a race may occur in the coming years.

“There is that sense of human interest, the guy who looks set to have the thing he aspires to most in the sport snatched from him on the final day. You look at Richard Johnson, I don’t think Dan’s gonna have to wait 16-17 years for it, but Willie Mullins builds his season around the DRF, Cheltenham, Aintree and Punchestown, and he knows that the modern Grand National is so much better suited to him and his stable.

“I put it to Mullins last year that he would be the equal of Vincent O’Brien (the previous Irish-based trainer to be Britain’s champion) if he won it again, but O’Brien only did it twice. Someone like Willie Mullins wouldn’t have it all if he doesn’t want a third for that unique place in history.”

There is further praise for its two protagonists from another of the Racing Post’s press team in Jonathan Harding:

“I don’t know what more Dan Skelton and Willie Mullins could have done to participate in it. Skelton could have sat at home licking his wounds, but instead he’s really got into the spirit of the thing as Mullins has.”

It has unquestionably provided a storyline for the sport where so often there is none on Sandown’s final day. It was an AP McCoy tribute fixture for decades, but arguably the annual recognition of McCoy’s achievements gained broader status in the outside world. The borders and confines of racing are thick after all.

The earlier tannoy announcement would possibly have been the only alert the general public received of the meaning and context of 24 hours’ time. But Harding suggests that this is our niche sport’s destiny, although once again, the press pack is united in as much optimism as can be shared.

ITV’s willingness to reactively and proactively change their schedules around can only aid what we might see in the news bulletins on Sunday.

Lee Mottershead on the Jumps Trainers’ Championship

“It’s hard to know how far it’s travelled, which is probably more a reflection of where racing sits in sports desks’ pecking order.

“There’s a consequence of a wider problem with print space declining and racing’s share of that. But I think racing itself has done a very good job of tapping into this trainers’ championship.”

“I think there’s limitations in how much you can promote a tussle that starts so late,” adds Mottershead. “It’s only really got interest in the final three weeks from something that’s 49 weeks old.

“But ITV’s willingness to reactively and proactively change their schedules around can only aid what we might see in the news bulletins on Sunday. Racing’s marketing budget is minimal compared to other sports, but within these constraints, they’ve done as well as they could have done.”

Horse racing is a glorious echo chamber. The drama and storylines unfold as plentifully as elsewhere, but maybe are destined to remain in the bubble.

Could Sandown themselves be a barrier? Would we be better concluding the season during the Grand National meeting for instance?

“Sandown probably doesn’t quite have the love of more picturesque places like Goodwood,” Hoiles concludes. “But the uphill finish means you get a good perspective so it’s a great place to work. The year-round nature of Sandown probably plays to its strengths because it’s both codes.

“You think of the finishes to the old Whitbread like Special Cargo’s victory, and this meeting at this venue has a good long history.”

“The most remarkable racing atmosphere was for the 2004 Tingle Creek,” Holt adds. “I think it might have been one of the best races ever run in this country.”

It’s smiles then for Sandown, and  the jumps finale. I don’t catch Skelton or Mullins skulking around in the background, but I do leave renewed that racing is serving racing people, with my day’s colleagues only reinforcing it daily.

The throngs around me may not know Dan Skelton yet. How they’d be encouraged to for just one minute in the know.

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