Cheltenham racecourse guide

Preview of the Cheltenham Festival course

Often referred to as the home of National Hunt racing, the main aim of Cheltenham racecourse is to provide the very best conditions underfoot for horses that participate in races there. After all a good racing surface is paramount and Cheltenham excels in this department at its countryside Prestbury Park location. Of course, special emphasis is given to making the Cheltenham Festival a truly magnificent racing spectacle. A very scenic course in morphology, it falls just below the hills of the Cotswold makes for a fantastic day for the racing neutrals should the desired sunshine arrive on racedays.

The Old Course

The main racecourse has two separate courses which both run in tangent alongside each other – the old and the new course. Both consist of a number of challenging, structurally sound fences which test the jumping ability of those horses that take them to the limit. Traditionally, the first two days of the Cheltenham Festival are run on the old course which is a one mile and four furlong oval with a three-hundred and fifty yard run in. Horses will swing the turf left-handed during their run-in which allows for an improved and smoother racing line.Fences on this course range from open ditches at the fourth and the sixth to a water jump at the third and jockeys must come to terms with the demands of this course as possible. Once the runners reach the top of the hill, the pace of the race almost always intensifies and those riders’ mistiming and diving over the jumps are sure to find themselves in a spot of trouble.

The New Course

The new course at Prestbury Park sees action the final two days of the Cheltenham Festival and is slightly larger oval than the old. It is a one mile five furlong oval but has a seemingly shorter run-in of two hundred and twenty yards. The runners and riders still swing this course left-handed. Open ditches are found at the third and the fifth and the water jump appears early at fence number two. This course was designed to facilitate a variety of different race distances with the minimum being just over two miles and the largest in excess of three. In all, four different distances are contested on this track in the festival and while both tracks are demanding they cater for the fastest racing speeds.

The Cross Country Course

Another relatively new addition at Cheltenham is the Cross Country course which conjoin sectors of the old course. In fact, the last three furlongs in the cross country races are run on this old course which creates a figure of eight trip. It conjoins features from both the old and the new courses and natural obstacles are laid out for steeplechase events.

Uphill run-in

The final task all runners and riders must overcome is Cheltenham’s stamina-testing uphill finish. After clearing the final fence the line is almost near but the nature of the landscape makes it one long hard slog but for the neutrals a terrific finish. Horses that look nigh on winning contests have come unstuck in the final stages of races at Cheltenham and when the tanks running on empty that finishing line appears to edging further and further away!

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