Windsor embraces return of jumps racing with cash at the Million festival
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Prize money has gone up significantly since National Hunt racing at the track some quarter of a century ago. When Windsor staged what was billed as its last ever jumps meeting in December 1998, the final race on the card was the Norwegian Blue Handicap Hurdle – a clear sign that as far as the track was concerned, jumping was no more. It had ceased to be.
![[Greg Wood]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/uploads/2017/10/06/Greg_Wood,_L.png?width=75&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
A generation later, though, it is suddenly showing distinct signs of life. There were just under 5,000 racegoers at Windsor last month for the first officially scheduled jumps meeting for 26 years, and the queues at the turnstiles on Friday – the first of two days as part of the first Berkshire Million festival, with the Clarence House Chase card at Ascot as the meat in the sandwich – suggested plenty of those fans had come back for more.
![[Derryhassen Paddy (left) on the way to winning the Berkshire Winter Million Novice Hurdle.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/a1c223d1170119c7b4dcca7a1477f4d10f82baa0/0_0_5317_3545/master/5317.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
There was a total of £18,299 in win prize money on offer for the seven races in 1998. On Friday, the figure was £212,500 and the riches on offer attracted runners from most of Britain’s biggest stables, as well as the most expensive National Hunt horse ever sold at public auction in the handsome grey form of Paul Nicholls’s Caldwell Potter.
A six-strong syndicate that includes Sir Alex Ferguson, the former Manchester United manager, went to €740,000 (£625,000) to secure Caldwell Potter after his former owner quit the game in early 2024. The seven-year-old was sent off at odds-on to recoup around £42,000 of his purchase price in the Grade Two Lightning Novice Chase, one of the feature events on the card, but having ranged alongside the front-running Gidleigh Park two out, his effort petered out and he crossed the line four lengths adrift.
