I echo your sentiments Martin, they are pointless races and for the top tier with our depth of available horses they provide both cheap win options and a method to hide a horse from the handicapper to then go raid a hurdle for more cheap wins.

Options

1 - Maidens only though I would worry with the lack of horses in the NH by the end of the season it will be walk overs.

2 - Make them a specialist race so any horse with either a chase or hurdle rating cannot enter them. I do actually trial for them and select a specialist horse but it’s always a top ten hurdle trial horse too.

3 - Bin them and replace them with a load of max rated 100 hurdle races, week one as a maiden.

4 - Max rate them at 100, should keep the likes of me out of them.

I am also more than happy to enter no more of them for the rest of the season, but it’s still a competition so I would hope the other top, so G1 winning NH trainers do the same.

Josh

I don't mind you and Leon et al winning them I just think its a waste of time given what they are meant for in reality.

There are a number of options. Obviously easiest is to scrap them but there is a way they could be made competitive.

My suggestion would be to make them maidens for first 3 weeks. Then 0-110/ 0-120 handicaps based on hurdle mark until Cheltenham/Liverpool where they are open level weight championship races but to run you must have run in a NHF race earlier in season a bit like the GN rule. Also no need for them to be restricted to novices so we get the potential of some big fields which might make them more interesting. I just feel that they need some sort of validity or purpose and that might work. Downside of course is that they would need to be handicapped but its only one extra race per week.

Glad you brought this up because we need to have these discussions and make decisions before everyone disappears at the end of the season.

Course its entirely possible no one else gives a ****.

Ever thought of the NHF race being just for 3yo only then that way they could return has Juveniles at 4yo Just a Thought lol.

Gray

Main issue with that will be for NH only trainers, since at 3yo my horses are lucky to have more than 65/70% realised potential. I would end up having to trial 3yo flat horses, that said these are generally my 4yo juveniles anyway. Its not the worst idea and its more in keeping with their real world usage.

I suppose making them 4yo only might make a bit of sense as it would encourage people to enter more 4yos. Those raced are undersubscribed this year already though so adding another in might make things worse.

My vote would be to do away with them altogether and use the slot for a low grade hurdle one week and an open long distance chase the next as those highly rated 4m horses really need some more opportunities.

Maybe even make the Leon Van Rensburg Cup at Cheltenham a final and have qualifiers every other week with no rating limit in the NHF race slot. Could still make the qualifiers hcaps if you wanted to and keep the final at level weights.

Why not make bumpers 4yo only and so they can run in the bumper and juvenile races. U could probably get shot of 1 or 2 races that way but giving horses enough chances to run. Martin I've been banging that drum ( need more long distance races) forever in a day. I believe there should be 1 race for the classier horses and one races for the lower hcap horses every week over 4miles plus. There has never been enough races for 4 mile plus horses, and they are some of the most important horses in jump racing. Not enough in real life.

Yes maybe instead of having 2 distances for the Moores Millions it should be 2 classes 0-130 and open. You could still alternate the distance each week between say 3m4f and 4m4f, you could even change the upper mark of the lower one to 120 some weeks. I would also have the finals over 4m and not at Aintree. At the moment its almost like a small field Grand National rerun.

Stage one - Can we confirm we can make the changes, does this require Leon.
Stage two - Run a poll with the considered options.

I would also likely vote bin them and add more low grade hurdles and mixed grade 4m+