Harrison Ferris, Journalist and host of The Big Five podcast, breaks down everything you need to know ahead of the ‘Olympics of Horse Racing’, Cheltenham Festival.
What Races are at Cheltenham?
“Every single race is split into different categories, you’ve got graded races, listed races and handicaps.
“Graded races go from grade one, two and three all the way down; the higher up you are, the higher quality of the race, of course, is.
“Listed races are just below that as well. You wouldn’t get many of those, of course, at the festival, but throughout the year, they’re an opportunity for horses to get up in grade.
“Handicaps are very interesting. The best way to explain it is you will see numbers with every horse that will go from one all the way down to 16, 20.
“In a handicap, every horse runs off different weights; the very top weight is 12 stone, which carries the most weight, and then you gradually go down, depending on your mark with the British Horse Racing Authority.
“Wednesday at Cheltenham is the Queen Mother Champion Chase, that’s a two-mile chase event, fast and furious that is.
“On day three, there are two features, the Stayers Hurdle, which is a three-mile staying event and the Ryanair Chase, which is for horses that don’t get into the big race, which comes on the Friday, and that is the Cheltenham Gold Cup, it’s a three mile two, furlong chase: it’s the biggest race of the year.”
How long is a furlong?
“A furlong is 220 yards and a half; if a race is two miles, like the Champion Chase is, that is 16 furlongs; there are eight furlongs in a mile.
“When you see winning distances from a race, you might see something like a head, a short head, 10 lengths, 20 lengths, that is all measured from what is called the photo, which is taken directly on the winning line.
“If it’s a tight finish and two horses are right on the line and you’re not sure who’s won, it goes upstairs, they decide, and then you’ll hear a head, a short head, that is literally the distance between the winning horse and how far it is behind the second horse.”
How to read a racing form:
“On a race card you’ll find numbers, dashes and letters, that’s called the form, that is every single position that that horse has finished in during this season and last, the number on the very right is the most recent run and then you work backwards from that so if it’s got a one beside its name it means it won last time out.
“Often, you’ll see F is the most important one, which means it fell in its last race; you’ll see a whole contingency of letters. RO means run out; BD means it was brought down.
“Another thing as well as you will see, two letters really important, C and D, they mean course and distance, if a horse has the letter C beside it means that it’s won here at Cheltenham, if it has a D beside it means it’s won over the distance, if it has C and D, it’s of course won here at Cheltenham over that distance.”
