Racing in Britain is divided between Flat and National Hunt (Jumps) racing. I am primarily a Flat trainer, although I do have the occasional Jumps horse, and it keeps the stable busy as both codes are in opera- tion all year round. Flat racing’s main season is between the
FlAt RaCiNg
end of March and the beginning of November, when the action is held on grass. It traditionally starts at Doncaster for the Lincoln meeting, through the main events of the summer and has a modern fi- nale on British Champions Day at Ascot in October. Its attraction is that there are weekday and weekend festivals and long- established prizes at various intervals throughout the season, all of which offer something different. Te Guineas meeting, with the 1000 Guineas for the fillies and the 2000 Guineas for the colts, is held on the wide-open Rowley Mile course in Newmarket in May and is the first big test for three-year-old horses in the most im- portant stage of their careers. From there we head on to Chester, a three-day society jamboree for the whole of the north-west, and to York where there are some valuable prizes and trials for the Derby at Epsom, which comes up at the start of June. As soon as the Derby is over, there are the spectacular five days of Royal Ascot, the re- laxed garden party affairs of the Newmarket July meeting and Glorious Goodwood, and four more top-quality
“As soon as the Derby is over, there is the spectacular five days of Royal Ascot, the
relaxed garden party affairs of the Newmarket July meeting and Glorious Goodwood.”
6 FOCUS The Magazine May/June 2018
www.focus-info.org
days to end the summer at York’s Ebor fix- ture. Tere is just nothing better than tak- ing a couple of days off work, finding a lovely country pub to stay in Sussex or Yorkshire and tying in some racing. It is not, of course, only about these big
days. Small midweek meetings have their charm and a personal favourite has always been the Monday night meetings at Windsor. Before I became a trainer, I used to love taking the train to Windsor after work and then having a pint whilst taking the short boat journey up the Tames to the track. You can watch a bit of racing and then easily wend your way back into London. Troughout the year, there is also Flat racing on a handful of all-weather tracks around Britain. Tey not only pro- vide opportunities to win races for some of the lesser horses but there is a valuable se- ries leading up to Lingfield on Good Friday, a fairly new idea which has proved a big hit.
Tere are summer Jumping meetings at a handful of smaller British tracks but the main period runs from the end of October to the end of April. Although very much a professional and modern sport, Jumping’s roots are from point-to-point racing, the amateur version which still takes place today through the winter on farmland and more informal racecourses. Tey derive from hunting, with the first recorded race being traced back to Ireland in 1752 when two men raced their horses cross-country between two church steeples a few miles apart. It is why races run over larger fences today are still known as “steeplechases.” Some horses can transfer from Flat racing to the Jumps, but most Jumpers are larger and specifically bred to have more stamina. Whilst Flat races can be as short as five fur- longs and as far as two and a half miles, Jump races are staged over more extreme distances.
NaTiOnAl HuNt RaCiNg
Flat Racing – the Derby
National Hunt Racing – Cheltenham
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