Cheltenham and Aintree will be among the courses replacing their birch hurdles in time for the start of the jumps season in October with a padded foam alternative which is estimated to be 11 per cent safer.
It means their respective Festivals next spring will both be run over the new hurdles which are the same height and dimensions as the birch hurdle which they are replacing but which make a dull thud when hit rather than a ‘rat-a-tat’ sound.
Anything which improves horse welfare is to be welcomed and while the old style birch hurdles are not dangerous per se, occasionally a horse manages to hit it one such a way that a splinter of birch can get into a joint or tendon.
One of the most extreme examples of this was when Nicky Henderson’s two-time Champion Hurdler Buveur D’Air got beaten in the 2019 Fighting Fifth Hurdle on his seasonal debut after running some birch into his coronary band at the top of his foot at the second last. It needed surgery to remove it and was 14 months before he ran again.
The new hurdles, which have been trialled at Exeter since 2016, Wincanton since 2018 and Market Rasen since 2022, were designed by Richard Linley, the recently retired British Horseracing Authority inspector of courses who won the Champion Hurdle on Gaye Brief as a jockey.
Explaining his one-man mission he once told the Racecourse Association: “When I first started riding, the old style hurdle had no take-off board and very little padding, and they were 40 inches in height and fairly upright. Looking at pictures of Persian War winning the Champion Hurdle in the late 1960s we’d have a war on our hands if we produced the same hurdles nowadays.”
In 1980 take-boards to give horses a groundline and help with their stride pattern were introduced and an uniform height of 38 inches which reduced the angle of the hurdle by seven degrees. Gorse hurdles, whose prickles were a hazard to both horses – a gorse thorn is is poisonous to a horse – and ground staff, were outlawed in 2000.
Initially Linley met resistance for change and his initial prototypes were not successful but eventually he came up with the current solution which is kinder for horses, easier for groundstaff to move and tend to break less. He found a willing course in Newton Abbot to trial them in 2013. Just over a decade later the remainder of the Jockey Club’s 11 jump courses will have them by 2026.
Statistics from the Industry Jump Racing Risk Model – an initiative set up and managed by the Horse Welfare Board –show that their introduction appears to have been beneficial with an 11 per cent reduction in the risk of falling in a hurdle race over padded hurdles compared to birch hurdles.
Feedback from racecourse vets, trainers and clerks of the course is that minor injures, scrapes and lacerations are substantially reduced as expected from contact with a padded surface versus a timber and birch frame.
Jon Pullen, clerk of the course at Cheltenham, said: “Following extensive research and analysis, it is evident that padded hurdles provide a safer alternative to traditional birch hurdles, while still presenting the same jumping challenge and spectacle for racing fans.
“Having been successfully utilised at some of our racecourses from as far back as 2016, we feel it is the right decision to deploy padded hurdles at all 11 of The Jockey Club’s racecourses which stage Jump racing. This process will require significant investment by The Jockey Club and will be completed in time for the start of the 2026-27 season.”
