Timeform Chasers & Hurdlers: 'Were you watching?'

It starts with a dramatic Grand National which 'for all that it had a very sad postscript' produced the closest finish in its history (and one depicted on the dust jacket of Chasers & Hurdlers), as Paul Nicholls' Neptune Collonges reeled in Jonjo O'Neill's Sunnyhillboy right on the line, with the winner recording a performance that hasn't been bettered by any Grand National winner since the Chasers & Hurdlers series began in 1975/1976. The latest Grand National was certainly not short of points of interest, including the changes made after the previous year's furore, and all are covered in the wide-ranging essay on Neptune Collonges. The deaths of two of the runners inevitably made the headlines afterwards, though Chasers & Hurdlers points out that the 'factors involved in both fatalities could not have been foreseen or prevented', whilst also underlining that the media coverage of deaths in the National has failed to have a lasting effect on public opinion, with a sell-out crowd of over 70,000 in attendance and a TV audience of 10m, the highest since 2008. Timeform argues against 'further major changes being made to the race or the course without very good reason', especially in relation to calls for a reduction in field size ('a big field is part of the National's attraction') or further modifications to Aintree's unique fences.

The Grand National is jumping's most popular attraction but the sport is fortunate to have a number of performers at the moment who have made a name for themselves beyond the normal boundaries of the sport. The first one mentioned is Kauto Star (you can read his essay HERE), the best steeplechaser for more than forty years whose comeback was one of the stories of the season - he won his fourth Betfair Chase and his fifth King George (Golden Miller is the only other horse to win a jumps race at the top level in Britain five times) - and his essays draws a parallel with Muhammad Ali, who was similarly idolised as a great champion who came back.

Big Buck's, who was Timeform's Horse of the Year for the first time, has built up a winning sequence stretching back to January 2009 and passed Sir Ken's long-standing record of sixteen straight wins in the latest season when winning his fourth Liverpool Hurdle (has also won four World Hurdles at Cheltenham). Chasers & Hurdlers compares his achievements with those of Istabraq and Baracouda, the only other hurdlers to come close to such complete dominance in recent times, and also warns against connections seeking a different challenge with him in the new season (though the essay on Quevega suggests ideas to encourage a meeting between the two), instead arguing that the prospect of a fifth win in the World Hurdle at Cheltenham is something to relish.

The introduction also praises Tony McCoy who won his seventeenth championship in a row - no other jockey, Flat or jumping, has exceeded the thirteen successive titles by Fred Archer in the nineteenth century.

Chasers & Hurdles doesn't just deal with the top performers, however. It is unique in providing an individual Timeform commentary and the all-important Timeform rating of merit for every horse that ran over jumps or in bumpers in Britain in the latest season, plus a good number of the better Irish horses that were not seen out over here.

From Always Waining to Zarkandar, there's so much to discover in the wide-ranging essays that are so much a feature of the Timeform Annuals, with all of the season's major talking points looked at. An update on the whip saga (Edgardo Sol), the over-provision of trials for potential Champion Hurdle contenders (Binocular), the curious absence of ratings for bumper horses in the end-of-season Anglo-Irish classifications (Chasers & Hurdlers has been publishing them since 1993/94) (Don Cossack), and an examination of the claims that course officials were indecisive in dealing with the bypassing of the final fence in the Champion Chase (Sizing Europe) at the Festival are just a small sample of the issues discussed.

Stars of the future are also picked out. Rated 175p ('astonishing for a horse in his first season over fences'), Sprinter Sacre reigned supreme in what proved a vintage season for novice chasers - only a handful of novices have previously achieved a rating of over 170. According to Timeform, Nicky Henderson also has another potential champion on his hands in Simonsig, who achieved the highest rating for a novice hurdler in Chasers & Hurdlers since the 2002/03 season and for whom 'the sky is the limit'.

Chasers & Hurdlers 2011/12 runs to over 1000 pages and is illustrated by over 300 photographs of the season's top horses and big races, providing a comprehensive record in print of another vintage season. The horses, over 9,300 of them, are laid out in a simple A-Z fashion, giving punters all the information that they need at their fingertips, as well as providing a valuable source of information for future historians of the sport. Whether a punter, racing enthusiast or both, Chasers & Hurdlers is unique and a must for anyone seriously interested in jumps racing.

Chasers & Hurdlers 2011/12 costs £75 (post free in UK) and can be obtained from timeform.com/shop or by calling 01422 330540 (24 hr credit/debit card line)