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In short, the National Stud is a Thoroughbred horse breeding facility situated just outside Newmarket, Suffolk, between the Rowley Mile and the July Course, which collectively constitute Newmarket Racecourse. Aside from stud services, the National Stud, which covers 500 acres, provides education and training for anyone interested in the bloodstock and breeding industries.

The National Stud was founded in 1815, when William Hall Walker, later Lord Wavertree, donated his bloodstock to the British government, in exchange for the purchase of his 1,100-acre estate in Tully, Kildare, Co. Kildare, Ireland. Newmarket Racecourse has been owned by the Jockey Club since 1974, but in 2008, having shed its reponsibility for the governance and regulation of British horse racing, the historic organisation also acquired the National Stud.The Jockey Club is governed by a Royal Charter, such that returns from its commercial interests, including the National Stud, are reinvested in British horse racing. The National Stud had previousy been under the control of the

 Horserace Betting Levy Board (HBLB), but was transferred to the Jockey Club when lack of funds threatened its existence.

The National Stud is, in fact, the only working Throughbred stud in Britain to offer guided tours to the general public. Public tours, taken by coach and on foot, are available at weekends and on bank holidays between February and October, and private tours can be arranged at additional cost. Resident stallions include three-time Gold Cup winner Stradivarius, Lope Y Fernandez, Rajasinghe and former top-class sprinter Bradsell.

Transportation, in Britain, to Europe, or further afield can be a stressful experience for racehorses and, as such, is subject to a whole raft of rules and regulations. Some of them relate to transporting live animals, in general, and some of them relate specifically to transporting racehorses for commercial purposes.

For example, unless you are travelling directly for veterinary diagnosis or treatment, you should not transport a horse that is not fit, in terms of fatigue, illness or injury, for the intended journey. In any case, you should not transport a horse in anything other than a clean, spacious vehicle, which is fit for purpose and unlikely to cause injury or distress. Of course, you must keep a valid identification document, or equine passport, with a horse whenever it is transported.

Racehorses are most often transported to and from racecourses, in horse boxes or horse lorries, by trainers acting on behalf of the hours. Racehorse trainers may or may not employ grooms to drive such vehicles but, either way, further regulations apply to horses being transported as part of a business or, in other words, for economic activity.

Depending on the distance, duration and final destination of the journey, in addition to a goods vehicle operator’s licence, businesses may need to hold a transporter authorisation, issued by the Department for Environment,Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and complete an Animal Transport Certificate (ATC), issued by the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA). Other requirements include a certificate of vehicle approval and certificates of competence for drivers and attendants.

The short answer is yes, they certainly can. When performing strenuous exercise, especially on hot, humid days, racehorses may be pushed beyond the limits of their recovery mechanisms and suffer incidents of overheating. Otherwise known as extertional heat illness, heat stress or hyperthermia, overheating typically occurs immediately post-race and is characterised by obvious signs of distress, elevated heart and respiration rates and profuse sweating.

In extreme cases, overheating can put horses into a state of medical shock, such that their organs and cells, including muscle cells, stop functioning properly. Symptoms may include unpredictable behaviour and gait, stumbling, collapse and convulsion, but medical shock is a life-threatening condition, so racehorses with serious overheating should always be considered a veterinary emergency.

Sweating is a much less effective cooling mechanism in horses than in human beings, such that during the Summer – or, indeed, during unseasonably warm weather at other times of year – racecourses take precautions to prevent heat-related problems in horses. Such precautions include the provision of plentiful, easily accessible water supplies, for washing down and drinking, in all horse areas and, if possible, additional shaded cooling areas, available pre- and post-race. Indeed, many British racecourses have also installed high-pressure misting fans, which draw heat from the surrounding air and allow horses to cool more quickly during washing down.

The British Horseracing Authority (BHA) is unfraid to abandon racing altogether, on welfare grounds, if temperatures are deemed unsafe. In July 2022, for example, the BHA abandoned five fixtures, at Beverley, Windsor, Chelmsford, Southwell and Wolverhampton, after an extreme heat warning was issued by the Met Office.

In short, Aintree racecourse. As the home of the world famous Grand National, Aintree Racecourse, on the outskirts of Liverpool, requires little introduction. Despite a raft to changes to the course, entry criteria and so on in recent years, the Grand National remains a tough, but fair, challenge for horse and rider and attracts an estimated audience of 800 million worldwide.

The Grand National circuit is a flat, left-handed triangle, two and a quarter miles in extent and featuring 16 distinctive, spruce-topped fences. Nowadays, the Grand National is run over a distance of four miles and two and a half furlongs, but must still negotiate 14 fences – including formidable obstacles such as Becher’s Brook, the Canal Turn, and the Chair – twice, before setting off up the infamously long run-in.

The Grand National is, in fact, just one of five races run over the National fences during the season. The other four are the Foxhunters’ Open Hunters’ Chase and Topham Chase, which are run during the three-day Grand National Festival, and the Becher Chase and Grand Sefton Chase, which are run on the same day in December.

Inside the Grand National circuit, the Mildmay Course is a similarly flat, but much shorter, at one mile and three furlongs in extent and is characterised by its sharpness. The fences, while stiffer than they once were, are of the conventional birch variety. Seasonal highlights on the Mildmay Course include the Old Roan Chase, in early November, and the Aintree Bowl and the Melling Chase, in early April.