Stratford-on-Avon
National Hunt

Stratford-on-Avon is left-handed, a sharp circuit of about 1 mile 2 furlongs shaped like a pointed triangle — the turns exiting the home straight and into the back straight are close to 90 degrees, with the bend back into the home straight the gentlest of the three. The track is mainly flat, with the only real undulation a gradual incline through the back straight followed by a sharper descent into the home bend. The run-in is short, around a furlong — combined with the sweeping final bend, this is widely cited as the mechanical reason for the course’s front-running reputation. The chase course carries 8 fences a circuit (6 plain, 1 open ditch, and a water jump reinstated in 2008, sited near the home straight and omitted on the final circuit of any race) — individually rated straightforward, but the course sees a higher-than-average fall and unseat rate, attributed to the pace horses are ridden at here rather than fence difficulty. The hurdle course has 5 flights a circuit, two of them in the home straight.

Stratford’s first recorded races ran on Shottery Meadow in 1718 — predating Cheltenham’s own racing history by 96 years. The course moved to its present site in September 1755. Racing was suspended from 1914 to 1919 for the First World War, and the Stratford Race Company, formed in January 1922, has run the course ever since — Stratford-on-Avon Racecourse Company Limited remains an independent, standalone operator today, not part of Jockey Club Racecourses or Arena Racing Company. The circuit was enlarged and its bends eased in 1969 when two adjoining fields were incorporated. Genuinely distinctive: in 1769, actor-manager David Garrick staged his famous Shakespeare Jubilee in the town and sponsored a race on Shottery Meadow, the Jubilee Cup — it lapsed in 1778 after local farmers complained about crop damage from the crowds. Two centuries later, in 1969, the course introduced the Garrick Jubilee Challenge Cup, a 2-mile hurdle, to commemorate that original race; a separate Shakespeare Cup ran from at least 1867. The course sits by the River Avon and floods periodically — meetings were abandoned in October 2020 when the river burst its banks overnight, and a serious flood in January 2024 submerged the track and buildings for several days, damaging fencing and threatening the traditional Cheltenham-week season-opener.

Beyond its Foxhunters’ feature, Stratford runs no Listed or Graded race — an honest, grassroots jumps card built from handicaps and novice events. Lottery, winner of the first-ever Grand National in 1839, raced and won at Stratford around that time. Fred Winter, one of National Hunt racing’s great jockeys and trainers, saddled his very last winner as a trainer here — Stag Dinner, in June 1988.

Stratford is repeatedly named among Britain’s strongest front-running tracks by independent analysts, grouped alongside Cheltenham, Doncaster, Hereford, Hexham, Sedgefield and Southwell — but no course independently publishes a hard win-percentage or A/E figure specific to Stratford. The mechanism is well understood even without a published number: a short home straight, a sharp final bend, and a short run-in mean hold-up horses rarely get the run of the race, while those ridden prominently and who jump fast and accurately are favoured.