If it wasn’t such a farce, you’d almost be able to laugh.
A large, deep hole opened up on the Cheltenham track overnight, incredibly just before the last race of the day. Remarkably, the hole hadn’t been noticed, emerged or even more importantly, caused injury to horse or rider during earlier races.
Then chaos ensued, ending in such farce that stewards couldn’t tell the winner from a photo finish because it was too late in the day, and therefore dark.
The Grade 2 AIS Novices’ Hurdle was delayed by nearly 30 minutes due to the hole in the track’s home straight, forcing officials to reroute the course and move the running rail. The race eventually ran in near-darkness, finishing after sunset.
You make your own luck and stewards got deservedly unlucky when the race finished so close it needed the judge to make a call – but of course it was too dark for the photo-finish camera to capture a usable image.
Instead, stewards relied on race footage to determine the result, confirming chance Kripticjim the winner.
Apparently the hole was caused by a drainage issue and was so deep that one worker could put his entire arm into it. As we said, it’s remarkable there wasn’t a serious injury or worse earlier in the day.
Cheltenham’s clerk of the course, Jon Pullin, along with jockeys and trainers, assessed the track and conditions and agreed to shift the rails to avoid the damaged area.
Despite the drama to end of the day, Pullin defended their decision to race on.
“We were confident that the area we re-routed the track over was safe,” Pullin said. “We’ll conduct a full investigation to determine what caused the issue.”
As you can see from the interview below, Lydia Hislop didn’t miss when asking about the events at the end of the day.
Just a complete farce.
— Archie (@abracing0) January 24, 2026
Interestingly, Ben Pauling, the trainer of the horse beaten in the photo finish, Taurus Bay, agreed with Pullin’s decision to race.
Pauling requested to review the stewards’ footage and described the result as “conclusive.”
“There was a hole, and initially there was talk of abandoning the race,” he said. “But these races are critical for horses like ours – it was his first real battle and he’ll come on hugely from it.”
“Yes, it was too dark for the photo-finish, but the video told the story. It was a proper race.”
The debacle caused significant debate, with many arguing the meeting should have been called off.
🗣️ “On what level is that a good decision?”
Steve Mellish on the controversial decision to run the finale at Cheltenham 👇🏻 pic.twitter.com/FNOerZz9vX
— Racing TV (@RacingTV) January 24, 2026
Officials say they are confident that exploratory works will be finished before the Cheltenham Festival in six weeks.
