How have the British handicappers allowed themselves to become part of the jigsaw that is the domination by Irish-trained horses of the Cheltenham Festival?

Well, two recent examples give a pretty clear indication why.

A horse called Vee Dancer rocked up from Ireland at Huntingdon three weeks ago. He was rated 90 in Ireland, but the British handicapper made him run off a mark of 100, as is his prerogative.

Vee Dancer has now won three handicap hurdles in the space of 10 days at the odds of 1-2, 1-4 and 1-3.

So, clearly 100 was not his right mark. His future mark will be 121. So he had a stone and a half in hand when he won at Huntingdon.

The stewards at Huntingdon inquired as to his apparent improvement, and noted the trainer’s explanation that “his horse hadn’t really improved” since his last run at Down Royal.

I was subsequently naive enough to send a horse all the way to Catterick to run in the race in which Vee Dancer notched his third win. That was a waste of diesel.

Cut to the meeting at Ascot pre-Christmas, and it was deja vu all over again. Gordon Elliott sent Ardhill over for a novice handicap hurdle, the gelding having been beaten a total of 417¾ lengths in his last five runs. Ardhill was rated 93 in Ireland, but the British handicapper put him on a mark of 104.

That did not deter Elliott and his horse went off a well-backed favourite and romped home. His new mark in Britain will be “a minimum of 121”, according to the British Horseracing Authority.

The stewards noted Elliott’s view that blinkers and better ground had helped Ardhill. History does not relate as to how carefully the Ascot stewards looked at his form on soft and heavy ground in 2020.

So the pattern is pretty clear here. The Irish and British handicap scales are out of kilter by considerably more than 10 pounds.

That view is backed up by the results at last season’s Cheltenham Festival. Sixty-nine horses from Britain and 48 from Ireland contested the five handicap hurdles there.

So on the balance of probabilities, if it had been a level playing field, the British horses should have won three, if not four of those races.

But not only did the Irish-trained horses win all of them, they were also second in three.

Of course, it is the job of every trainer to get their horses as well handicapped as possible, and I for one share the admiration of the practitioners who are the best at it. Whilst we persist in having too many handicaps (we still haven’t learnt from the French here), trying to outsmart the handicapper has always been the game.

But the mismatch of the Irish-British handicap scales needs addressing. This is not artistry; it is just blatantly unfair. The British horses are handicapped to get beaten, whilst their Irish counterparts are handicapped to win.

Stevie Fisher: a man who squeezed every drop of fun from life

It might be a bit late for Christmas shopping, but if you are a countryman, someone who loves the fringes of National Hunt racing or just a straightforward p— artist, I recommend you get hold of a copy of Blinkin’ ’Ell.

Stevie Fisher was undoubtedly a bit rough around the edges when he was a kid. But the boy from Weston-Super-Mare put his heart and soul into everything he did and became one of the country’s most award-winning farriers.

He loved point-to-pointing, drinking, hunting, more drinking, going to Cheltenham, a lot of drinking and his wife and his mates, who were also quite good at drinking.

But then tragedy struck. Stevie had a massive stroke that has left him with locked-in syndrome. He is permanently incapacitated with only his left eyelid for communication. 

So blink by blink, letter by letter, Stevie has brought us the stories of his good times and bad with some light-touch editing by Brough Scott.

Blinkin’ ’Ell may not be a literary masterpiece, although there are shades of Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man by Siegfried Sassoon lurking in there. It is something much better than that; the tales of a man who squeezed every drop of fun from life and kept going when it bit him on the a—.