Author: G C

The International Meeting, often known, simply, as ‘The International’, is a two-day fixture held on a Friday and Saturday in the middle of December at Cheltenham Racecourse in Gloucestershire in South West England. The fixture takes its name from the feature race, the International Hurdle, currently sponsored by online gambling operator, Unibet, which takes place on the second day, although the whole weekend has a more ‘international’ feel to it than you might otherwise expect to find in the Cotswolds.

 

The highlight of the opening day, for example, is the Glenfarclas Country Handicap Steeple Chase, which concludes a series of ten similar races – including the oldest and most difficult of them all, the Velka Pardubika in the Czech Republic – that constitute the Crystal Cup European Cross Country Challenge. Run over 3 miles 6 furlongs on a twisting, turning course of banks, ditches, hedges and rails, the Glenfarclas Country Handicap Steeple Chase is the ideal finale of series designed to find the finest horses and horsemen in the specialist discipline of cross country.

 

On the second day, the International Hurdle is a Grade 2 contest run over 2 miles and 79 yards, and eight conventional flights of hurdles, on the New Course at Prestbury Park and open to horses aged four years and upwards. The race is, nonetheless, a recognised trial for the Champion Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival and was, in fact, inaugurated as the Cheltenham Trial Hurdle in 1963. The last horse to win both races in the same season was Rooster Booster in 2002/03, but My Tent Or Yours, the winner in 2017, had previously finished runner-up in the Champion Hurdle in 2014, 2016 and 2017.

 

Reigning Champion Jockey Richard Johnson, who rode Rooster Booster, is the most successful jockey in the history of the International Hurdle with six wins.

The supporting card for the International Hurdle also includes the Caspian Caviar Gold Cup, a Grade 3 handicap steeplechase run over 2 miles and 5 furlongs on the New Course and inaugurated in the same year as the International Hurdle, as the Massey Ferguson Gold Cup. The race is open to horses aged four years and upwards and is often contested by horses that ran in the Betvictor Gold Cup at the previous November Meeting at Cheltenham.

For the uninitiated, Tingle Creek was bold, front-running ‘chaser, described by Timeform as, “on occasions, the best two-mile chaser around when conditions were in his favour”. He ran in the Sandown Handicap Pattern Chase six years running between 1973 and 1978, winning three times and breaking the track record each time he did so.

 

The race named after Tingle Creek, fittingly a two-mile ‘chase staged at Sandown Park in Esher, Surrey, where it forms the highlight of the two-day Tingle Creek Christmas Festival in early December, was won by the horse in 1973, but is not a successor to the Sandown Handicap Pattern Chase. The Tingle Creek Chase was, in fact, inaugurated as the Benson & Hedges Gold Cup in 1969, before being renamed the Tingle Creek Handicap Chase in 1979 and becoming a Grade 1 ‘Weight-for-Age’ contest in 1994. Since then, the roll of honour for the Tingle Creek Chase reads like a “Who’s Who” of the two-mile chasing division, with winners including Viking Flagship, Flagship Uberalles, Moscow Flyer, Kauto Star, Twist Magic, Master Minded, Sprinter Sacre and Sire De Grugy.

 

Of course, one race doesn’t make a festival, but the supporting card for the Tingle Creek Chase also includes the Henry VIII Novices’ Chase, another Grade 1 contest, run over the same course and distance as the Tingle Creek Chase, but open to novice ‘chasers – that is, horses that have not won a steeplechase before the start of the current season – aged four years and upwards. Named after King Henry VIII, who regularly hunted in Esher, the race was elevated to Grade 1 status in 2011. In 2016, the Henry VIII Novices’ Chase was won by Altior, who went on to win the Arkle Challenge Trophy Novices’ Chase at the Cheltenham Festival in 2017 and the Queen Mother Champion Chase in 2018. Sceau Royal, an impressive 11-length winner of the Henry VIII Novices’ Chase in 2017, was also a leading fancy for the Arkle Challenge Trophy Novices’ Chase at the Cheltenham Festival in 2018, but missed the race after a slight setback.

The three-day Grand National Meeting is staged annually, in April, at Aintree Racecourse on Merseyside in North West England, although the exact date depends on when Easter falls each year. Following, as it does, hot on the heels of the Cheltenham Festival with, typically, three or four weeks between the two prestigious meetings, National Hunt enthusiasts have little time to recover before putting their emotions through the wringer once again.

 

The Thursday of the Grand National Meeting, a.k.a. Liverpool Day, has been described in some quarters as the ‘calm before the storm’ but, while the attendance is definitely lower than on the Friday or Saturday, a crowd of around 35,000 is not uncommon. Of course, the Grand National Meeting also kicks off with four Grade 1 races in a row, the Aintree Manifesto Novices’ Chase, the Betway Bowl and the Aintree Hurdle, so the adrenalin is pumping even before the first race of the week over the National fences, the Fox Hunters’ Chase, later in the afternoon.

 

The Friday, a.k.a. Ladies’ Day, too, features more Grade 1 action, in the form of the Mildmay Novices’ Chase, the Aintree Melling Chase and the Sefton Novices’ Hurdle, which are run on either side of the feature handicap, the Topham Chase. Inaugurated in 1949 and named after the late Mirabel Topham, former owner of Aintree Racecourse, the Topham Chase is run over 2 miles 5½ furlongs or, in other words, one circuit of the National course.

 

The Saturday, a.k.a. Grand National Day, is all about the most famous steeplechase in the world, the Grand National. Inaugurated in 1839 and, nowadays, officially run over a distance of 4 miles 2 furlongs and 74 yards – reduced by a furlong after re-measurement in 2016 – the Grand National remains one of the toughest tests ever devised for horse and rider. To win the most valuable steeplechase in Europe, horses must negotiate thirty spruce fences, including household names such as Becher’s Brook, the Canal Turn and the Chair, and the famously long, 494-yard run-in between the final fence and the winning post.

The first all-weather horse racing fixture in Britain took place, on the original 10-furlong, Equitrack course at Lingfield Park in Surrey, in 1989. However, All-Weather Championships Finals Day is a much more recent addition to the horse racing programme, having first been staged, on the newly resurfaced Polytrack course at Lingfield, on Good Friday, 2014. That was the first time that horse racing had been staged on Good Friday in Britain but, after some initial opposition to the idea, All-Weather Championships Finals Day quickly became established as part of the British racing calendar.

 

All-weather racing contributes more than a fifth of the British horse racing fixture and, in fact, the All-Weather Championships can be credited with regenerating the all-weather programme. The All-Weather Championships has, in effect, created a schedule – akin to the British Champions Series, sponsored by Qipco – that builds, through a qualifying period, to a Good Friday finale in each of six race categories.

 

In the case of the All-Weather Championships, the qualifying period is between late October and Good Friday and to qualify for any of the Championship Final races, a horse must run at least three times on a synthetic surface, at Chelmsford City, Kempton Park, Lingfield Park, Newcastle, Southwell or Wolverhampton and obtain a sufficiently high official rating, or win a specific “Fast Track Qualifier”. Four Fast Track Qualifers, including at Dundalk, Chantilly, Deauville and Cagnes-Sur-Mer, are scheduled for each Championship Final and victory in any of them qualifies the winner to free, guaranteed entry to a specific race on All-Weather Championships Finals Day.

 

The Three-Year-Old All-Weather Colts, Fillies & Geldings Championship Final is run over 6 furlongs and worth £150,00 in total prize money, making in the most valuable race of its kind in the country. Similar comments apply to the Sprint Championship Final, which is run over 6 furlongs and 1 yard and open to horses aged four years and upwards, the Mile Championship Final, the Marathon Championship Final, run over 1 mile 7 furlongs and 169 yards and open to horses aged four years and upwards and the Fillies’ & Mares’ Championship final, run over 7 furlongs and 1 yard and open to fillies and mares aged four years and upwards. The Middle Distance Championship Final, run over 1 mile 2 furlongs, is the most valuable all-weather race run anywhere in Britain.