At the Cheltenham National Hunt Festival you’ll see a wide variety of different types of race, but you may not fully understand what they all mean. So what are they?

Chase Horse Races

A chase is a kind of race which is run by horses over fences. In chases, the minimum fence height is set to 4.5 feet (just over 1.37m). The fences are fairly wide and are designed to look like box hedges. If a horse jumps incorrectly over chase fences, it is common to see them fall down. The distance of chase races can be anything from 2 miles to 4.5 miles. Famous chase races include the Queen Mother Champion Chase at the Cheltenham Festival, the Cheltenham Gold Cup and the world renowned Grand National horse race.

Hurdle Horse Races

A hurdle race is a race where the horses must jump over hurdles. The hurdles must be a minimum of three and a half feet in height. Hurdles are generally made from rather thin pieces of wood, and are designed to give way if they are hit, meaning that horses are less likely to fall down if they hit a hurdle. Hurdle races are required to have at least eight hurdles. They are also required to be a minimum distance of two miles.

Hurdle races are a type of National Hunt race, and the horses often compete in hurdles as practice before competing in chases, as chases are harder to master due to the thickness and strength of the fences.  Horses that become very good at hurdle races often begin competing in the chases as they age, because they are no longer quick enough for hurdle races and because their jumping technique will be much better after practising on hurdles.

Bumper Horse Races

The official name for bumper races is National Flat races, and these are exactly as they sound – flat races with no obstacles. The idea behind flat racing is that jump horses can benefit from racing experience on flat race tracks, before beginning a career in hurdle races or chases. Because there are no obstacles for the horses to jump over, the horses on occasion run more quickly, but because many of the horses are only taking part to gain racing experience, the races can sometimes be quite slow.

Bumper races are often at the end of a race day and are well known for finding it very hard to predict which horse will win the race. Bumpers are infrequent in the UK, but they are very popular in most Irish hunt meetings with a bumper at the end of most of the race days. The name 'bumper race' latched on as historically, new and inexperienced jockeys were permitted to compete and so then ‘bumping’ style gave the National Flats a new name. Bumpers are most generally run over distances of 13 - 20 furlongs. Furlongs are a measuring distance in horse racing and each furlong is equal to around 201 metres.

Other Race Types

The race types be split down further depending on the horses running. For instance a novice race is for horses of 2 years old who have not won more than two races. Amateurs are races with amateur jockeys.