Cheltenham Racecourse

Originally posted by Galileo@Jan 26 2008, 12:04 PM
Paul Nicholls describes it as a "speed" track in his column today...do we agree?
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It's an interesting one. Mick Fitz said recently that Ascot was a speed track and that everyone thinks it is a staying track. I was in the latter camp as thought the run from swinley bottom on softish ground was quite tough. But I think he points out that everyone takes a breather for two or three furlongs at the point so then becomes a spped test home.

As for Chellers, I think the fact that it dries out quickly means invariably the ground doesnt get too deep. The run down from the top of the hill is quite steep. Have been up there walking the track for last four years and its a long way down as full tilt so can def see how slower horses get outpaced. The climb up from the second last is similar to leopardstown but whereas leopardstown flattens out, Chellers keeps rising. The race is over by the last anyway so the hill doesnt really come into it if you lost ten lengths from the top of the hill. So I can see his point.
 
I think you definitely need plenty of pace to hold a position throughout the race. Slow horse's dont do well at Cheltenham. But even allowing for that I wouldn't call it a speed track such as Kempton or Aintree.
 
Not convinced there's necessarily such a thing as a speed track or stamina track, even though we widely use the words, and broadly know what we mean by them.

What I think there is, are certain types of races that reward certain types of runs, and the relationship with speed owes more to distance and race type than course.

People probably need to appreciate as well, that stamina is very often the reason why a horse can run quickly, and as such you're very often looking at two sides of the same coin. It might be helpful to think more in terms of rhythmic galloping tracks, and tight accelerating tracks for instance.

I'm increasingly of the opinion that there's two types of stamina too, but will spare you that one for the time being :D
 
It's a track which certain horses excel at, which is why they keep winning there - but yes you need speed as most races there are run at a quicker pace throughout due to the quality of runners and the level of prize money. The downhill injects a lot of speed too. But as Warbler implies, it's that combo of speed AND stamina which is needed, as pure speed horses tend to empty up the hill.

I guess he's comparing it to smaller tracks which have much tighter bends so you can't keep up that level speed throughout?
 
It's why hardy, inca, istabraq etc do well there. enough speed to go the pace and hold a position but enough stamina to keep that position at the end.
 
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