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Which courses do members consider to be the stiffest in the UK and Irish Republic? How many still have water jumps?
I have noticed that fallers are a rarity in modern jumping, we have plenty of fatalities but mainly between the jumps on the flat.I don’t know that they’re all that particularly big, but I’ve always thought that jumping that double at Galway in a big handicap field with some horses around you not jumping straight and the occasional loose horse zig zagging around must be pretty hair raising and is a good test of a horse’s athleticism and nerve.
Was never at the course but from TV it looks like the fences at Warwick take a bit of jumping.
The portable catapult fences at Southwell, Worcester and Haydock look pretty bad. Also the ‘normal’ fences at Ludlow and Taunton leave some horses somersaulting. Warwick fences seem pretty high imo.
The final fence at Leopardstown looks particularly tricky to me.
The tracks I associate with needing a good jumper are Warwick and sandown
Though that’s maybe because of the way the fences set up than them being stiff
When I used to work for the Racing Specialist in the 1980s, I made a study of this, looking at average fallers to runners over fences in novice chases and non-novice chases.
Back then, Cheltenham was fearsome, as was Wetherby, in fact after starting off somewhere like Market Rasen or Catterick, Peter Easterby would send his decent novice chase prospects to Wetherby to see if they were ready for Cheltenham.
Haydock, with its big drop fences, was tough too.
But it’s all change now and fences, like bookmakers who will lay winning bets to you without closing you down, are not what they once were.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Cheltenham still seem to set the standard for jumps. The ultimate test.
I remember there was a lot of controversy in the early 90s about how stiff the jumps at Wetherby were. They used to attract very small fields.
On the opposite side You can practically run through the fences at Ludlow and Musselburgh. Doesn’t teach novices how to jump. And I hate the portable fences at Southwell, Worcester etc.
Wetherby and Haydock have both been ruined as jumps tracks, especially the latter. Fences are meant to be jumped over. I have seen horses at Haydock jump through them!
Completely agree – the fences at Wetherby and Haydock used to be an awesome sight, they stood out from fences at other circuits.
But those days are long gone.
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Used to go to Wincanton a lot. back in the 90s mainly. The fences there were a real test but probably been modified since then? Not been there for some years.
Not too fond of those fences at Southwell and Taunton… they look pretty stiff and must be rough for the horse.
Time flies like a banana, flies are like arrows...fruit?.. wait, no....
By some distance, I’d say the stiffest jumping test on offer nowadays, is the Mildmay Course at Aintree. One reason for that is the very limited amount of use it gets.
Fences become easier to brush through the more times they are jumped, as each horse knocks the birch and softens it just a little more. It’s also why there are fences where it’s unwise for a jockey to go wide – the third last at Kmepton is a prime example. The section closest to the far rail gets hit much more often than the outside half of that fence. Just watch next time they race there, and note how many chasers make a mistake coming wide that knocks them out of contention.
I don’t have any up to date stats, but I’d guess the Mildmay course has a higher proportion of fallers and/or race ending mistakes than anywhere else these days.
I agree.
Where once David Nicholson referred to them as “upturned dandy brushes” they now look to me too to be some of the stiffest around.
A couple of professional punters recently suggested that, here in 2021, the Mildmay is actually a tougher jumping test than the Grand National course.
I don’t know if that’s true, but how times change to even be having the conversation!
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"The Mildmay course is also flat and tight/sharp; hence it favours the speedy, agile type rather than the more ponderous, careful type. This allied to the resilient fences does indeed make it a good test of jumping
Mention was made of Peter Easterby sending his novices to Wetherby: similarly Gordon Richards was fond of sending his over the ‘big black drops’ at Haydock
The schools of hard knocks
The old Wetherby with its big, daunting fences would never have considered staging Flat racing. I still cannot get used to it.
I can remember when horses like One Man ran in the Rowland Meyrick and the Castleford Chase attracted top class two milers.
At least in the last jumps season the track saw wins by First Flow and Chantry House, both subsequent Grade 1 winners. But Wetherby’s decline seems to have coincided with the general decline of NH racing in the north.
The BHA couldn’t give a toss about northern racing full stop, apart from Lord Teddy’s York. Whilst Ascot gets Group race after Group race if a Coolmore or Maktoum horse farts in its general direction, Beverley was hit extremely hard by the Hilary Needler being stripped of its Listed status. Tossers.
BUY THE SUN
The Hilary Needler at Beverley is a fantastic race.
I saw Devon Ditty win it in 1978 and, from memory, she went on to win: the Cherry Hinton, the Lowther, the Flying Childers and the Cheveley Park.
And Attraction won it in 2003 – and then won her next five on the bounce: Queen Mary, Cherry Hinton, 1,000 Guineas, Irish 1,000 Guineas, Coronation.
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