Windsor
National Hunt

Jump racing returned to Windsor on Sunday 15 December 2024, ending a gap that press coverage has variously described as 20 or 26 years — the track’s last regular NH season ran to 1998, though it hosted a handful of jump fixtures on behalf of Ascot in 2004 and 2005 while Ascot’s own grandstand was rebuilt, with the last of those run on 16 December 2005. Windsor is owned by Arena Racing Company (ARC), not the Jockey Club — the same 16-course group that runs Lingfield, Newcastle and Doncaster — and the return was an ARC commercial decision rather than a BHA fixture-list mandate, announced in July 2023 and absorbing some existing April and October Flat fixture dates rather than adding to the annual total.

The course’s short history has already taken an unusual turn. Its first season used a purpose-built, continuous left-handed circuit of around a mile and a half, separate from Windsor’s famous figure-of-eight Flat track. Then, in November 2025, following a review with the PJA’s safety officer and the BHA Racecourse Inspectorate, and on veterinary advice that a figure-of-eight layout improves horses’ stride balance and reduces injury risk, Windsor reverted to a traditional figure-of-eight jumps course — the same shape last used before 1998, and one of only two in Britain alongside Fontwell Park. Clerk of the Course Charlie Rees called it “a very exciting track which will be here to stay,” and the change was publicly backed by Nicky Henderson. The safety factor under the current layout is rated 16.

Windsor’s jumps course is simply too new to support any pace read yet, qualitative or quantified. The sample size is tiny — a handful of fixtures since December 2024 — and the track itself has already changed shape once, reverting from a purpose-built left-handed oval to the traditional figure-of-eight in November 2025. Any pattern that might have existed under the old layout doesn’t necessarily carry over to the new one. No course guide, pundit, or statistical service has yet published even an informal read on running-style bias here. Separately, well-documented pace and draw-bias data does exist for Windsor’s Flat figure-of-eight course (a long history of front-running bias off its ~5f run-in) — but that describes a different discipline entirely and shouldn’t be assumed to carry over to the new jumps circuit. This section will be built out honestly once enough racing has been run over the current layout to say something real.