Horse Racing - National Hunt Courses - Doncaster

Home of the World’s Oldest Classic, Doncaster is one of the historic homes of horse racing. The highlight of the year on the flat is undoubtedly the four-day St Leger Festival in September, where the feature race, the St Leger, first run in 1776, is staged on the Saturday, and the meeting also boasts such prestigious races as the Doncaster Cup, Champagne Stakes, Flying Childers Stakes, May Hill Stakes and Portland Handicap.

Doncaster also stages the first and last turf race meetings of the Flat season; starting with the Lincoln Meeting in March and ending on November Handicap day. In between are a clutch of valuable afternoon and evening fixtures, including the Group 1 Vertem Futurity, run in late October, which is often a strong pointer to the following year’s classics.



Over jumps Doncaster hosts some important fixtures over the winter; the most significant being the Yorkshire Chase in late January and the Grimthorpe Chase in early March.

Characteristics

Left handed, essentially flat. Extremely well-draining course, with conditions often favouring speedier types despite its galloping nature. Surprisingly for such a galloping track, plenty of chases are well run and this perhaps explains why the casualty figures are so high.

Left handed
Galloping
Flat

Ayr
Worcester
Nottingham