A dozen of the best

Never has the annual longing been so keen for the National Hunt high season to begin. Dual scourges of foot-and-mouth disease and the wettest year since records began in 1766 savaged last term's calendar.

The Cheltenham Festival, keystone of the season, was at first postponed until April when falling foul of an 11th-hour alteration to the then Ministry of Agriculture's guidelines for the continuation of racing amid rural epidemic. Then it was finally felled by an outbreak of foot-and-mouth at nearby Woolstone.

Yet the sport battled on, thanks mainly to the British Horseracing Board's praiseworthy lead in the face of ill-informed and emotive criticism from farmers, corners of the media and even parts of its own industry.

Adhering instead to scientific fact, it reduced a negligible risk of spread yet further by introducing rigorous disinfectant measures, still in operation nationwide today, and rescheduled lost fixtures with admirable flexibility. To shut down would have cost the racing and betting industries an estimated £60 million a month. With Cheltenham lost, Aintree's Grand National meeting was seized upon as saviour of the season. The great race itself was certainly unforgettable. Forty horses went to post on that sodden track, but only two returned without parting company with their jockeys and just four in total.

Creating some memorable scrapbook pictures was jockey Richard Guest, who on Red Marauder managed to overcome probably the worst round of jumping ever displayed by a National winner in the slowest time since 1883. Debate over whether the race should have been run in such conditions raged rather longer.

Cheltenham's loss was Sandown's gain. The Esher track enhanced its two-day Whitbread Gold Cup meeting to incorporate approximations of key Festival events otherwise lost. They were rewarded with the best finish of the season when 2000 Champion Chase winner Edredon Bleu and jockey Tony McCoy, beat tenacious Fadalko and Ruby Walsh by a short head. Both horses jumped with exhilirating speed and accuracy. A re-match is keenly awaited.