Timeform Features 
/ Timeform / 12 October 2011 / Leave a Comment 
Ballabriggs jumps the last in a controversial Grand National
"the latest edition including a call for the racing authorities to wake up to the number of ‘non-triers’ over jumps which, says the annual in the essay on Peddlers Cross, ‘are as widespread now as they have been for a long time’."
Once the poor relation, jumping is now streets ahead of the Flat in public appeal and the appearance this Saturday of Timeform's Chasers & Hurdlers annual is a timely reminder that the top jumpers will soon be taking centre stage again. Read on for a sneak preview of what's inside...
As with its predecessors, Chasers & Hurdlers 2010/11 covers all the season's controversial issues (and raises new ones!), as well as recording in full the achievements of all 9,500 jumpers that ran in Britain, providing a monument in print to a vintage season which, despite some of the worst winter weather for years, lived up to everything expected of it.
The exploits of the season's outstanding champions are all vividly brought back to life in the wide-ranging essays that are so much a feature of the Timeform Annuals. Long Run became the youngest winner of the Cheltenham Gold Cup since Mill House, beating veterans Denman and Kauto Star - the last-named looking for a moment as if he might regain the Gold Cup for a second time - in a never-to-be-forgotten race which features on the dust jacket of Chasers & Hurdlers.
Big Buck's, one of the finest staying hurdlers ever seen, continued his serene progress towards equalling Sir Ken's long-standing record winning sequence for a hurdler of sixteen wins, something he will achieve if he goes unbeaten through the four-race campaign mapped out for him in the next season (Chasers & Hurdlers sees nothing to touch him in the big races).
It is testament to the quality of the top jumpers around at the moment, however, that neither Long Run nor Big Buck's was Timeform Horse of the Year, that award going to the Champion Hurdle winner Hurricane Fly who, like Big Buck's, was unbeaten. Hurricane Fly, a true heir to Istabraq, won five Grade 1s and, as with Big Buck's, Timeform can't envisage him surrendering his crown in the next season.
As usual, the longest essay in Chasers & Hurdlers is on the Grand National winner, the exposition on Ballabriggs extending to fifteen pages and covering in detail the furore over the deaths of two of the runners, and the winning rider's suspension for excessive use of the whip. Chasers & Hurdlers points out that Ornais and Dooney's Gate were the first horses killed in a fall in the National for nine years but says that the race will never shake off criticism (the essay traces the history of the troubles endured by the race down the years).
Timeform points out that the construction of the fences and the quality of the racing surface at Aintree would be hard to better. 'Despite the criticism, the race has stood the test of time,' says Chasers & Hurdlers which records that the crowd of 70,291 was one of the biggest for more than fifty years and the TV audience of 8.8m dwarfed that for any other horserace. The National was responsible for Tony McCoy gaining overdue recognition by becoming the BBC Sports Personality of the Year, an achievement covered in the essay on Don't Push It.
The media coverage of winning rider Jason Maguire's five-day suspension after the latest National led to the British Horseracing Authority announcing yet another review into use of the whip, the recommendations from which are now controversially being implemented.
Chasers & Hurdlers warns that the BHA faces a near-impossible job to come up with a solution that will satisfy everyone. Timeform believes that the new cushioned whip should in itself have gone a long way to providing the answer. The essay on Ballabriggs points out that the publicity given to whip suspensions after big races has played its part in making the whip an issue that won't go away. The answer: the whip rules should be framed around incorrect use of the whip with the specifying of a 'norm' for excessive use (which triggers most of the inquiries) being dropped, the worst cases of excessive use being dealt with - as they can be equally effectively - under other existing parts of the whip rules.
Chasers & Hurdlers is unique in providing an individual Timeform commentary and the all-important Timeform rating of merit for every horse that ran over jumps or in bumpers in Britain in the latest season, plus a good number of the better Irish horses that were not seen out over here.
In addition, the season's biggest controversies are all discussed, from the horrific electrocution of two horses in the paddock at Newbury which received front-page publicity, to the fiasco of reigning champion Binocular missing the Champion Hurdle after a drug used to treat a skin allergy showed up in a precautionary test days before the race, and then to the banning of top trainer Howard Johnson who fell foul of racing's welfare and drug rules.
Chasers & Hurdlers doesn't pull its punches when discussing the major issues, the latest edition including a call for the racing authorities to wake up to the number of 'non-triers' over jumps which, says the annual in the essay on Peddlers Cross, 'are as widespread now as they have been for a long time'.
Timeform reminds readers of the wording of the rules requiring horses to be ridden on their merits which states that a jockey must be seen to have made a genuine attempt to 'obtain from his horse timely, real and substantial efforts' to achieve the best possible placing (the wording also interesting in the light of some of the riding under the new whip rules).
'The responsibility for seeing that punters are not short-changed rests with the stewards who must be seen to be imposing the rules with firmness and consistency. At times nowadays, at some of the more far-flung outposts of jump racing, it seems as if they are hardly applying them at all.'
Chasers & Hurdlers runs to 1,112 pages and is illustrated by nearly 400 photographs of the season's big races and top horses. Look up any horse - the entries are laid out alphabetically - and its merit and racing character are apparent at a glance. Everything you need to know before you bet is at your fingertips! The essays provide hours of informative and entertaining reading, and provide a valuable source of information for future historians of the sport, but the comprehensiveness of Chasers & Hurdlers is one of its major strengths. No other country has a complete directory of all its racehorses, published every year.
Chasers & Hurdlers is unique and a must for anyone seriously interested in racing over the jumps - whatever the angle!
Chasers & Hurdlers 2010/11 (£75 post free in UK) can be obtained from timeform.com/shop or by calling 01422 330540 (24hr credit/debit card line)
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