What is the difference between flat and jump racing?

The most obvious difference between Flat and Jump, or National Hunt, racing is that Flat racing does not require participants to negotiate obstacles, but National Hunt racing, at least for the most part, does. The one exception is the confusingly-named National Hunt Flat Race, colloquially known as a ‘bumper’, which is run under National Hunt Rules, but involves no obstacles at all.

Flat racing is also staged, on the whole, over shorter distances than National Hunt racing. In Britain, the official minimum distance for a Flat race is 5 furlongs, but the official minimum distance for hurdle races and steeplechases is 2 miles. At the other end of the scale, the longest Flat race staged in Britain is the Queen Alexandra Stakes, run over 2 miles, 5 furlongs and 143 yards, while the longest National Hunt race is the Grand National, run over 4 miles, 2 furlongs and 7 yards.

Nowadays, Flat and National Hunt races take place throughout the year, but the Flat season ‘proper’ traditionally starts with the Lincoln Handicap at Doncaster in late March or early April and ends with the November Handicap at the same course in early November. By contrast, the National Hunt season ‘proper’ traditionally starts in mid-October and ends with the Bet365 Gold Cup, originally known as the Whitbread Gold Cup, at Sandown Park in late April. National Hunt racing is typically less financially rewarding than Flat racing and, with the most important part of the season extending through the winter, is generally considered less fashionable and less glamorous.

What is jump racing?

Jump racing, also known as National Hunt racing, is the code, or discipline, of horse racing that involves negotiating obstacles, usually in the form of hurdles or fences. Some jump racing does, however, take place on specialist ‘cross country’ or ‘bank’ courses, on which some of the obstacles are more akin to those typically found in open countryside. In Britain, with the exception of some National Hunt Flat races, all jump races are run over an ‘official’ minimum distance of at least 2 miles, although on certain racecourses the advertised distance may be slightly shorter. However, the longest jump race staged in Britain is, unequivocally, the Grand National, nowadays run over 4 miles 2 furlongs and 7 yards, at Aintree Racecourse in April each year. Since the advent of so-called ‘summer jumping’, which began in 1995, jump racing is staged throughout the year, although the National Hunt season ‘proper’ lasts from mid-October to late April or early May.

What is Flat racing?

Flat racing – often, but not always, capitalised – is the code, or discipline, of horse racing that involves no obstacles. Flat racing is sometimes referred to as racing ‘on the level’, but some racecourses on which Flat racing is staged are anything but level, with pronounced undulations or severe uphill or downhill gradients. In Britain, Flat races are staged over distances between 5 furlongs and 2 miles 5 furlongs and 143 yards and take place, on turf, during a season that traditionally lasts from late March or early April to early November. However, Flat racing also takes place on the all-weather tracks at Chelmsford, Kempton, Lingfield, Newcastle, Southwell and Wolverhampton all year round.

What happened to Shergar?

Having won the Derby by 10 lengths – still the widest winning margin in the history of the race – in 1981, Shergar was, for a time, the most celebrated racehorse in the world. Following his last race, in the St. Leger Stakes at Doncaster, later that year, he was retired to Ballymany Stud, in Co. Kildare, Ireland, where he was syndicated for £10 million.

However, less than two years later, on a murky night in February, 1983, Shergar was abducted by a gang of masked gunmen, believed to belong to the Irish Republic Army (IRA), and never seen again. Ransom negotiations – conducted, bizarrely, by British horse racing journalist Derek Thompson – followed, but ended abruptly with an anonymous, but coded, message that Shergar had died ‘in an accident’.

Exactly what happened to Shergar remains an abiding mystery. He may well have died, as suggested by more than one former IRA member, in a hail of machine gun bullets in a stable at a remote farm near the town of Ballinamore in Co. Leitrim – former ‘bandit country’ – near the border with Northern Ireland, after becoming distressed by his new surroundings. However, the IRA has never officially claimed responsibility for his disappearance, his kidnappers have never been officially identified and his remains have never been found.

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