Statistics don’t support the use of red hoods at Cheltenham As the dust settles on another Cheltenham Festival it is always interesting to look back at the data to try and spot trends. An obvious starting point is the attendance across the four days. The good news is that the overall numbers were up. 7,400 more people attended the Festival this year than last year. The 2026 attendance broken down day: Tuesday 57,242 Wednesday 46,317 Thursday 55,648 Friday 67,016 This year's total of 226,223 is still a long way off the 2022 post-Covid attendance of 280,000, but is at least heading back in the right direction. Irish dominance continues but gap narrows Irish-trained horses again won most of the races (15 Irish to 13 British), but it was a lot closer this year than most might have predicted. Willie Mullins was leading trainer as usual with 8 wins and Paul Townend took the riding honours with 4 winners. The pair combined to win the Gold Cup for the fifth time in eight years and they remain the dominant duo in National Hunt racing. Lots of surprise results across the week, but interestingly three of the four biggest priced winners were in non-handicaps - 50/1 Triumph Hurdle, 40/1 Mares Novice Hurdle and 33/1 Stayers Hurdle. Overall the handicaps were far more predictable than many of the conditions races, with season-long plots once again reaping rewards. Could Saratoga have won the Triumph Hurdle? We'll never know. Could Madara have won the Ryanair Chase? Maybe we'll find that out next year. Article highlights: Only 1 out of 96 horses wearing red hoods to the start won a race at Cheltenham Willie Mullins, the festival's most successful trainer, didn't use red hoods on any of his horses Red hoods may be counterproductive for nervous horses, potentially contributing to false starts Gordon Elliott fitted red hoods to 19 of his 51 runners, none of which won The red hood mystery One remarkable statistic from the week is in relation to horses wearing a red hood down to the start. Across the four days a total of 96 horses, including many favourites and fancied runners, were fitted with the red hood, but only one of them won, 20/1 Albert Bartlett winner Johnny's Jury. On average 1 in every 17 horses that ran at Cheltenham last week won a race, but for those wearing a red hood to the start it was just 1 in 96. Thinking about this, I presume the red hood is primarily used by trainers for horses that are of a nervous disposition and are easily spooked by noise and crowds. The red hood cossettes the horses from much of the hurlyburly of the preliminaries, but then, just before they are required to focus on the job in hand of racing, the hood is removed and without any prior warning these horses are exposed to the full sensory experience of the occasion. This seems like the worst possible scenario for a horse with a nervous disposition. I'd imagine they'd be far better off if they were gradually introduced to the sights and sounds of the occasion from much earlier in the proceedings so that by the time they were required to race they had already acclimatised to it. Red hoods and false starts Maybe the removal of the red hoods so shortly before the start of races is in some way a contributory factor to the high number of false starts? Nervous or spooked horses certainly cannot be helping the situation. Here are the numbers of horses that wore red hoods in the preliminaries of races with false starts: Plate Handicap Chase 4 National Hunt Chase 3 Champion Hurdle 1 Champion Bumper 8 Turners Novices Hurdle 5 Pertemps Final 5 Jack Richards Novice 2 Mares Novice 6 Martin Pipe 4 Albert Bartlett 6 Top trainers and red hood usage Perhaps the use of red hoods also goes a little way towards explaining the poor performance of Gordon Elliott's runners across the four days. Elliott fitted red hoods to 19 of his 51 runners across the four days last week and none of them won. His only winner, Wodhooh, wasn't fitted with a red hood. Henry de Bromhead and Dan Skelton were two other trainers that used red hoods on quite a number of their runners, but none of their 4 winners during the week were fitted with the red hoods before their victories. And here is the real kicker when it comes to red hoods, the most successful trainer at this year's Festival, Willie Mullins, didn't use them at all. Other festival concerns One area where we have no official data is in relation to the amount of cocaine consumed across the four days, but many of those in attendance are reporting it to have been out of control. No doubt it was a contributing factor to the unsavoury brawls that broke out in the enclosures. It also feels as if the number of social media influencers using Cheltenham as a vehicle to peddle their own brands of irresponsible gambling is heading in the same direction. Cheltenham Racecourse does lots of things very well, but maybe more effort on policing these types of activities would serve the sport better than the heavy handed control of Irish connections wanting to celebrate winners in the parade ring.
