'You need to keep your powder dry over hurdles at Haydock' - Aidan Coleman on this weekend's two Grade 1 tracks

Grade 1-winning jockey Aidan Coleman walks us through this weekend's Grade 1 courses at Haydock and Punchestown and explains exactly what characteristics you need your horse to have to win at each track . . .

Haydock

The fences are nice and straightforward. They’re not overly big, but they do take a little bit of jumping. 

It’s a funny track because you turn in and everyone gets rolling away. You need to travel around Haydock because you always go a good even tempo but you also need to stay well, because it’s a long way from the start of the straight to the line. You don’t see too many winners coming from fifth, sixth or further back over fences, so you need a horse who travels well enough to be up there, but they also need to stay well.

So the key is a high cruising speed but the stamina to get home. It’s fairly straightforward and although the fences come up quickly enough, there’s no real bogey fence. The first fence down the back is a little bit downhill, but at that stage of the race you can pretty much do what you want with it. 

For some reason over hurdles, from the back of the last a lot of horses seem to have a chance from behind.

When Paisley Park won the old fixed brush hurdle, he was ten lengths off them jumping the last and on a flat track like that, you’d think you would never get them, but he got up on the line.

You definitely want to keep your powder a little dry and you see a lot of results changing late over hurdles.

Punchestown

There are loads of idiosyncrasies to Punchestown, which is very undulating. You climb passing the line for a couple of furlongs but it’s like a rollercoaster and you then go down over a couple. 

The two-mile start is virtually on the finishing line so it’s a great big track and it has loads of character.

The fences are all in great positions and there are no nasty traps. Three-out can be a bit tricky because the bend comes up quickly afterwards and then you kind of run down to two-out.

I love Punchestown, it’s got a bit of everything. Over hurdles you run down to the last and you don’t have as much time, while it also rides tighter because it’s on the inside, but it’s still a hugely enjoyable track.

I don’t think that it has a trait that explains why Fastorslow has had an advantage over Galopin Des Champs. It is more down to the fact that the John Durkan and the Punchestown Gold Cup come at the wrong time of the season for Galopin Des Champs, while you also have to remember the John Durkan is over two and a half miles which is on the sharp side for such an outstanding stayer.

Remember what a test of stamina Galopin Des Champs has come through on the New course; if any horse is going to be at a disadvantage going down in trip by half a mile, it will be a Gold Cup winner, no matter how much class he has.

Read these next:

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'We want to go down the Gold Cup route and I feel he can do it' - Skelton's big expectations for Grey Dawning's Betfair Chase comeback 

JP McManus supplements Willie Mullins-trained Grade 1 winner for Betfair Chase after Corbetts Cross misses out 

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