JUMPBACK TO FUTURE

reports on jumps return at Windsor after almost two decades

- Xander Brett

Too often, the phrase “making history” is over-exaggerated. But in a racing context at least, there was no mistaking that a paragraph of history was being amended at Royal Windsor Racecourse on Sunday December 15, almost 5,000 racegoers reinaugurating jump racing at the venue nearly 19 years to the day since it had last been staged.

Regular National Hunt meetings ended in 1998, though Windsor took on some of Ascot’s contests in 2004 and 2005 when that track was being redeveloped.

“That’s the first jump in nearly two decades,” declared John Hunt in commentary, when at 12:12pm four runners hopped over their first flight of hurdles, the confirmation “we’re jumping at Windsor” relayed on radios held by an army of groundsmen.

Emma Lavelle’s Ma Shantou landed the 2m4f opener, steered to victory by 26-year-old Harry Cobden, a seven-year-old child when jumping last took place here. Cobden scored a double when Jimmy Frost’s Asian Spice got a head in front to win the fifth race on the card.

Rewind 19 years and it was Mick Fitzgerald who rode two winners on Friday December 16, 2005, the last time obstacles graced the track. Fitzgerald was on broadcasting duties two decades later. Sam Thomas, another winning jockey during the 2005 finale, was among the triumphant trainers in 2024, his Vincenzo claiming race two, a first test of the new fences.