No Mas, Michael.

I have been attending the Cheltenham Festival since going with my Dad in the early 1990s. I've hardly missed a year since. Yet I came out of my now normal two day pilgrimage on the Wednesday night last year and decided I wasn't going back.
My first year attending may have been 1992 (painful memories of my hero Carvills Hill's eclipse) but the fabric of my Festival memories goes back a lot further- to my early teens when I first got interested in racing and began to partake in the endless winter debates about Champion Hurdles, Gold Cups and Champion Chases. Speculation about Irish horses going over to take on the might of England kept us enthused in the long winter evenings and tales of heroes past like Vincent O'Brien's domination of the Gloucester Hurdle, Paddy Sleator's daring raids and Mick O'Toole's tilts at the ring filled many a Friday evening at Uncle Jim's.
It was simpler them, three perfect days, three championship races and nowhere to hide. All that changed utterly when the jamboree expanded to four days. Now we had races at intermediate distances- the Ryanair, the JLT, three novice hurdles, mares races, a Cross Country for God's sake. It was Quantitative Easing for racing- dilute the product and spread it thinner, no one will notice. Outwardly, they haven't. All four days are well attended, the focus on Cheltenham is arguably narrower than ever, the racing is still exciting. The Festival dollar in your pocket still buys what it always did- or does it?
Michael O'Leary was out front and centre this week pushing for another new Festival race- an intermediate distance Championship hurdle. In his argument he mused that the Gold Cup in 2016 was no poorer for the absence of the 176 rated Ryanair winner Vautour. All of the speculation that season after he was chinned on the line in the King George was around whether he would get the trip in the Gold Cup- it split people down the middle like a civil war. Then mere days before Cheltenham the news came that he was ducking the gig and taking the easier option over two miles five. Anyone who asserts that this didn't devalue that year's Gold Cup is a fool or a knave- I'm not sure which you are Michael but it's evens each of two.
The extra races have already torn the narrative of time, of champions- how good was Quevega? Annie Power? Could both have won multiple championship races against the boys? How many Bobsline/Noddy's Ryde clashes have we missed out on since the JLT? Can you name the last 4 winners of the Martin Pipe?
Why do I feel relaxed about missing out in March? It's no fun any more- I don't know what will run in which race, I don't really care who wins most of them and I no longer deem it worth the scrum and the expense. I will go back, but I'm not saying when.
If you're losing me from the March extravaganza you're losing a fair chunk of your previous diehards. In good times like this it may not matter, but when the next downturn comes your four days may start to look a litttle threadbare, both in terms of the "product" and the bottom line.