Author: G C

The May Festival, of which British luxury jeweller Boodles has been the title sponsor in recent years, is the opening three-day fixture of the season at Chester Racecourse, on the banks of the River Dee, in Cheshire in North West England. The May Festival, which first took place in 1766, is staged on a Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

 

The Wednesday, a.k.a. City Day, features the principal Derby trial of the week, the Chester Vase, and the principal Oaks trial, the Cheshire Oaks. The last Derby winner to run in the Chester Vase was Wings Of Eagles, who finished second to stable companion Our Venice Beach in 2017, while the last Oaks winner to run in the Cheshire Oaks was Forever Together, who similarly finished second to stable companion Magic Wand in 2018. Both horses were trained by Aidan O’Brien.

 

The Thursday, a.k.a. Ladies Day, features the Ormonde Stakes, run over 1 mile 5 furlongs and 84 yards and open to horses aged four years and upwards, and the Dee Stakes, run over 1 mile 2 furlongs and 70 yards and open to three-year-old colts and geldings only. The former is considered a trial for the Coronation Cup, while the latter is considered another, albeit slightly inferior, trial for the Derby.

 

The Friday, a.k.a. Chester Cup Day, is mainly about the highest profile, and most valuable, race of the week, the Chester Cup, a heritage handicap run over 2 miles 2 furlongs and 147 yards, open to horses aged four years and upwards and worth £154,000 in prize money. However, on the supporting card, the Huxley Stakes, run over the same course and distance as the Dee Stakes, but open to horses aged four years and upwards, was elevated to Group 2 status by the European Pattern Committee in 2018 and received a 66% increase in prize money, to £125,000.

After a flurry of activity at the end of the National Hunt season, notably the Cheltenham Festival in March and the Aintree Grand National Festival in April, by the time May rolls around it’s the turn of Flat racing aficionados to feel a little hot under the colour in anticipation of the first two Classic races of the season.

 

Currently sponsored by Qatari owned private investment company QIPCO, the Guineas Festival is staged annually, over a weekend in late April or early May, on the Rowley Mile at Newmarket Racecourse in Suffolk, in the East of England. The Guineas Festival features not only the 2,000 Guineas and the 1,000 Guineas – which, together with the Derby, Oaks and St.Leger, comprise the five British Classic races – but a full supporting card which, in 2018, was worth nearly £1.7 million in prize money.

 

The feature race on the Saturday, the 2,000 Guineas, is run over a straight mile and open to three-year-old thoroughbred colts and fillies. The race was first run in 1809, but wasn’t designated a “Classic” by the Jockey Club until five years later, shortly after the inaugural running of the 1,000 Guineas. The 2,000 Guineas took its name from its original prize fund, as did the 1,000 Guineas, but nowadays both races offer equal prize money of £500,000. The roll of honour for the 2,000 Guineas includes such luminaries as Brigadier Gerard (1972), Dancing Brave (1986), Sea The Stars (2009) and Frankel (2011), all of whom were rated 140+ by Timeform and can therefore be considered some of the greatest racehorses since that venerable institution published its first “Racehorses” annual, in 1948.

 

The feature race on the Sunday, the 1,000 Guineas, is run over the same course and distance as the 2,000 Guineas, but open to three-year-old thoroughbred fillies only. One of the most remarkable winners in the history of 1,000 Guineas was Sceptre who, in 1902, won the race 48 hours after winning the 2,000 Guineas and later finished fourth in the Derby before winning the Oaks and the St. Leger.

As the name suggests, the Bet365 Jump Finale is a single-day fixture that marks the end of the National Hunt season in Britain. The Bet365 Jump Finale is staged annually, in late April, at Sandown Park Racecourse in the town of Esher, in Surrey, in the South East of England. Inaugurated in 1957, as Whitbread Day, the fixture was commonly known by that title even after Whitbread Brewers withdrew their sponsorship in 2001, despite subsequently being sponsored by At The Races, Betfred and, most recently, Bet365. Until 2013, the Bet365 Jump Finale was a mixed-code meeting, featuring Flat and National Hunt racing on the same card but, since then, has exclusively featured National Hunt racing.

 

Bet365 Gold Cup, formerly the Whitbread Gold Cup, remains the highlight of the day. A Grade 3 handicap steeplechase, run over 3 miles 4 furlongs and 166 yards, open to horses aged five years and upwards and worth £150,000 in prize money, the Bet365 Gold Cup has traditionally been a difficult race in which to carry weight. Since the turn of the twenty-first century, just four horses – Puntal in 2004, Lacdoudal in 2006, Tidal Bay in 2012 and Hadrian’s Approach in 2014 – have carried 11 stone or more to victory in the race.

 

The supporting card for the Bet365 Jump Finale also includes the Bet365 Celebration Chase, run over 1 mile 7 furlongs and 119 yards, open to horses aged 5 years and upwards and elevated to Grade 1 status in 2014. Since then, its roll of honour has included Sire De Grugy (2014), Sprinter Sacre (2016) and Altior (2018), all of whom had won the Queen Mother Champion Chase at the Cheltenham Festival the previous month. Of course, the final day of the National Hunt season is the day on which National Hunt Jockeys’ Championship and the National Hunt Trainers’ Championship are decided, so part of the celebrations at the Bet365 Jump Finale is the presentation of prizes to the respective winners.

To anyone connected, even loosely, with National Hunt racing, the Cheltenham Festival requires little introduction. The four-day extravaganza is staged annually, in March, at Cheltenham Racecourse, a.k.a. Prestbury Park, in Gloucestershire and is, undoubtedly, the most prestigious National Hunt event of the year. During the four days, most of the best National Hunt horses, from both sides of the Irish Sea, do battle for championship honours, not to mention over £4.5 million in prize money.

 

However, the Cheltenham Festival is not just a major horse racing occasion; it is, in fact, a British sporting institution and, arguably, the most famous Anglo-Irish sporting occasion of the year, attracting over 260,000 spectators – an average of over 60,000 a day – including 10,000 itinerant Irish racing fans. The Cheltenham Festival features a total of 28 races staged over four days, dubbed Champion Day, Ladies’ Day, St. Patrick’s Thursday – regardless of the actual date on which the Thursday falls – and Gold Cup Day.

 

The first two days, which feature the first two ‘championship’ races, the Champion Hurdle and the Queen Mother Champion Chase, respectively, are staged on the Old Course, while the last two, which feature the Stayers’ Hurdle and the Cheltenham Gold Cup, respectively, are staged on the New Course. Both courses are left-handed, undulating and testing in character, but the Old Course has a slightly shorter run-in and places emphasis on stamina than speed. The Cross Country Course, laid out in the centre of the two conventional courses, is used only for the running of the Glenfarclas Cross Country Chase, currently scheduled for Ladies’ Day.

 

Aside from the four championship races, The Festival™ programme – the trademark is owned by Jockey Club Racecourses, which runs Cheltenham Racecourse – also includes nine more of the most prestigious type of race, known as Grade 1, in which the weight carried by each horse is determined by its age and sex, rather than its previous performances on the racecourse. These races are, in chronological order, the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, the Arkle Challenge Trophy, the Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle, the RSA Chase, the Weatherbys Champion Bumper, the Ryanair Chase, the Stayers’ Hurdle, the Triumph Hurdle and the Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle.