THE issue is so delicate that vows of silence appear to have been taken, but it is increasingly evident that the Cheltenham Festival is the biggest stumbling block to an agreement within the racing and betting industries that could keep the sport on Channel 4 beyond the end of this year.

Progress has been made, latterly through the involvement of the Levy Board, in developing Channel 4’s notion that racing should finance its terrestrial coverage. Cheltenham, however, is the glaring anomaly. Channel 4 is adamant that it will drop racing if it loses the Festival but how, in all commercial conscience, can the sport pay to have its greatest jumps meeting on one television channel when it could command a huge sum to sell it to another?

Just how much tension has developed around this subject became clear when Edward Gillespie, managing director of Cheltenham, aired the possibility of selling his rights in isolation, rather than as a package with the remainder of the Racecourse Holdings Trust (RHT) courses, as at present.

Gillespie’s remarks were calculated to draw attention to the value of Cheltenham but they apparently brought a frosty rebuke from RHT head office, where they were considered unhelpful to ongoing negotiations. Surely, though, we are now at a stage where such problems need to be debated? The prospect of Channel 4 walking away is difficult for many to comprehend, such has been the established merit of their coverage. If it happened, BBC (and maybe ITV) would bid for Cheltenham but lack of competition would give the corporation every excuse to screen only the biggest events. Outside twenty-odd key days, the sport would be banished to a satellite ghetto.

Decisions are likely in the next month but anxiety should not panic racing’s negotiators into giving away the crown jewels along with the furniture. Cheltenham needs to be given a value — and Channel 4 needs to acknowledge it.

• Mattie Batchelor’s first Cheltenham winner, a fortnight ago, was the subject of celebration among the jockeys’ fraternity, with whom he is very popular, but caused a grinding of teeth by Jockey Club executives, who regarded him as fortunate to be riding at all. Just how fortunate has been made clear by the publication of a new Procedures and Penalties booklet with some significantly altered punishments.

  Last month, Batchelor was found guilty of misleading a Jockey Club investigating officer over his dealings with John McCracken, the warned-off punter, and fined £2,500. As of now, fines will be inapplicable to such an offence, which instead carries a suspension of between three and six months for a jockey. Associating with a disqualified person can also now be punished by suspension.

  HUGHIE MORRISON, who rode with only modest attainment (five point-to-point winners) before turning to training, brought himself and one of his horses out of retirement to win a charity race at Ludlow last week. The outcome has given him fresh enthusiasm to run the quirky Frenchman’s Creek in the Grand National.

  Marble Arch, runner-up in the 2002 Champion Hurdle, was Morrison’s partner at Ludlow and the trainer explained: “We’d retired him a year ago but he’s so well now that we might run him again on the Flat. We’ve been taking him out on family fun rides.”

  Similarly unorthodox methods apply to Frenchman’s Creek. “My step-daughter, Panda, is an event rider and she takes him out regularly. He’ll jump anything on an event course but turns his nose up at regulation fences now. That gives me some hope that he might take to Aintree.”

  IT HAS the makings of a classic pub quiz question — name the horse that ran in both the Queen Mother Champion Chase and the Cheltenham Gold Cup, and was then beaten in a hunters’ chase less than a week later? Venn Ottery, the answer, could yet add to the curiosity value, as he is still engaged in the Grand National.