THE Cheltenham Festival is the biggest week in the jumps racing calendar and it attracts many people who may be new to the sport.
If that’s you then welcome!
Many of the terms in racing can be confusing – even for people who have been watching it for years.
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Here are some of the key ones.
CHELTENHAM FESTIVAL
First run in 1860, the Festival has grown to become the biggest four days of the jumps season. It features a series of “Championship” races that decide who the best horses of the year are.
The main ones are the Champion Hurdle on Tuesday, the Champion Chase on Wednesday, Thursday’s Stayers’ Hurdle and the Cheltenham Gold Cup on Friday.
There are a host of top supporting races too and owners, trainers and jockeys dream of winning any race.
The concentration of so many top horses and top races is what makes the meeting so special.
RACE TYPES
HURDLES: The horses jump hurdles which look like gates. They are not fixed rigidly into the ground and horses often kick them down as they jump them. They are usually three and a half feet high.
CHASES: The horses jump fences that are made from birch and are normally four and a half feet high. Most tracks also have a water jump where the fence is smaller but there is a small “pond” to leap over.
There are plain fences and open ditches – these have a gully in front of the fence so the horse has to jump a bit further.
NATIONAL HUNT FLAT: These are also called bumpers and are for horses that will eventually be hurdlers or chasers to gain some experience. They are run on the hurdles track but the hurdles are taken away so it is a flat race for horses who are just learning the sport.
THE START
Unlike the Flat there are no starting stalls for any jumps race – the horses line up behind a tape which is released by the starter to signal the race has begun.
HANDICAP or NON-HANDICAP?
The goal of a handicap race is for horses of different abilities to be able to race each other without the result being obvious.
To try to equalise them, the faster horses carry more weight than the slower ones. The idea is that weight slows horses down.
In jumps racing, the horses can carry as little as 10 stone and the best horse would generally carry 11 stone, 12 lb.
A jockey would usually weigh about 10 stone with their saddle and other equipment.
The rest is made up of thin lead weights that are put into the saddle. So if a horse is due to carry 11 stone and the jockey plus their saddle and other equipment like boots etc adds up to 10 stone, then that horse will have a stone of lead weights put into the saddle.
The Cross Country Chase is one of the best handicap races at the Festival[/caption]
The weights are set by the official handicappers who decide how good they think each horse is. When a horse runs well it generally has more weight to carry next time and if it runs badly it often has less weight in future races.
In a NON-HANDICAP, the horses generally all carry the same weight. Although female horses, known as fillies until they become mares at the age of five, get a 7lb weight allowance in some races.
Many of the most prestigious races at the Festival are non-handicaps.
RACE DISTANCE
In jumps racing, the shortest races are just under two miles long. The longest race of the season is the Grand National at Aintree in April which is over four miles, two furlongs and 74 yards.
A furlong is 220 yards and there are eight furlongs in a mile. Races over three miles and further are often called “staying races”. In racing, a horse called a stayer is considered to have lots of stamina.
RACE CLASS
Our racecards show the class of today’s race. Class is a bit like the divisions in football. A Class 1 race would be the Premier League, Class 2 the Championship, Class 3 League One and so on. You’ll see much better horses in Class 1 races than Class 5 contests.
Some of the races at Cheltenham are Grade 1, 2 or 3. That is higher again than even Class 1 with Grade 1 the very pinnacle of the sport. Horses running at this level are the true superstars.
THE GOING
The going is the condition of the course on the day of racing. If there has been a lot of rain it will often be described as soft or heavy which means very soft. This is also known as slow ground.
If there hasn’t been so much rain around, it could be good to soft, good or even good to firm. This is often known as fast ground.
It’s important because some horses like soft ground and others like it good or firm.
The Favourite’s racecards tell you which going each horse has won on – S-soft, G-good, GS-good to soft, F-firm, GF-good to firm.
FORM
You can spend seconds or hours looking at a horse’s form – the record of how it has done in its previous races.
On the racecard, the horse’s most recent run is always closest to its name. So if it says 311-221 that means the horse won its last race and finished second in the two before that.
Everything to the left of the dash is from last season.
There is more detail in the Sunform we carry for every race. That tells you where the horse ran last time and how it did.
OWNERS, TRAINERS AND JOCKEYS
Surprise, surprise, owners own the horses. But they can be individual people or racing clubs and syndicates with thousands of members.
Trainers look after the horses, they live at their stables and are kept fit and prepared for each race.
Jockeys ride the horses in the race. Some jockeys have little figures in brackets after their name. These are usually young riders called “conditional” jockeys who are just starting their career.
Sir Alex Ferguson will be at Cheltenham cheering on his runners[/caption]
They get weight knocked off the horse they are riding – 7lb until they have clocked up 20 wins, 5lb until 40 wins and 3lb until 75 wins.
After that they become fully fledged jockeys and get no weight allowance. The figure in brackets is the amount to knock off the horse’s weight in today’s race.
Some of the biggest names in sport and entertainment will be among the owners at Cheltenham this week.
Sir Alex Ferguson and Harry Redknapp will be on site, while Geri Haliwell will have a runner on Friday.
JOCKEYS’ COLOURS
The colours relate to the owners. Each owner has their own colours that jockeys riding one of their horses wear.
When the same owner has two or more runners in the race, the jockeys wear the same shirt but have a different coloured cap. It’s a bit tricky to follow sometimes when that happens.
HEADGEAR
There are different types of headgear that are mostly designed to help a horse concentrate in a race. They are shown by different symbols on the racecard.
T: The horse is wearing a tongue tie. This is a device used by trainers to stop the horse’s tongue from flapping about. It doesn’t hurt them.
B: The horse is wearing blinkers. This is a type of hood the horse wears with little cups around the eyes. It helps the horse to look forwards during the race and not be distracted.
H: The horse is wearing a plain hood – it doesn’t have the blinkers on but goes over their ears to help block out some of the noise and help them stay nice and calm, especially before the race.
P: The horse is wearing cheekpieces. These look like big sideburns and are attached to the horse’s bridle. They help the horse to concentrate.
STAR: The star means the horse has the blinkers, cheekpieces or hood – known collectively as headgear – on for the first time.
You’ll also hear talk of a “wind op”. This is a medical procedure some horses have to help them breathe more easily during a race. It can help some horses find more stamina in their races.
TRACK RECORD
Horses that have run well at Cheltenham often come back and run well again. This is shown on the racecard.
C: The horse has won at this course before – ie Cheltenham.
D: The horse has won a race over this distance before.
CD: The horse has won a race over this course AND distance before.
OLD COURSE OR NEW COURSE
Cheltenham is actually two tracks in one. The Old course is the original that is used for the first two days of the Festival.
Then there’s the New course which is a bit more of a test of stamina and you often see horses coming from miles back to win up the hill. Both courses have the same finish in front of the stands.
Forget that, Cheltenham is three tracks in one! There is a cross-country course in the middle of the other two courses that is used once during the meeting.
There are a whopping 32 obstacles to be tackled including different types of hurdles, fences and banks.
It is a throwback to jumps racing hundreds of years when races would be run across open fields from steeple to steeple, hence the old-fashioned term steeplechase.
HAVING A BET
We all love to take a few quid off the bookies. There are various ways of doing this, here are just a few:
WIN SINGLE: This is where you pick a horse and back it to win. It has to be first past the post to get a return.
EACH-WAY: This is where your horse either has to win or finish in the places. Usually the places are the first three for races of 5-15 runners, or the first four for 16-runners or more. But some bookies offer even more places so check the adverts in the Favourite each day. With an each-way bet half your stake goes on the win, and half goes on the place which is paid out at either a fifth or a quarter of the odds depending on your bookie.
FORECAST: This is where you try to name the horse that will finish first and the one that will come second – in the right order. A bit tricky!
ACCUMULATORS: Also known as an acca, this is where you try to pick the winner of two or more different races – and they all have to win to get a payout. Even more tricky!
PLACEPOT: This is where you pick a horse to be placed in the first six races of the meeting. If they do you’ll get a potentially very nice return at Cheltenham.
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