The Boat Race public tests are in November at the British Indoor Rowing Championships, where each university sends around 20 rowers to compete. Everyone races 2 km on an indoor rower with the club presidents using adjacent machines. Both universities also send crews to the Head of the River Fours race in London, which is raced over the reverse Boat Race course, that is to say the Championship course from Mortlake to Putney. In December, the coaches put out "Trial Eights" where two crews from the same university race each other over the full Boat Race course. These crews are given names such
The Boat Race 2019 (sometimes referred to as the "Dark Blues") and the University of Cambridge (sometimes referred to as the "Light Blues"). First held in 1829, the race takes place on the Championship Course, between Putney and Mortlake on the River Thames in south-west London. The rivalry is a major point of honour between the two universities; it is followed throughout the United Kingdom and broadcast worldwide. Cambridge will go into the race as champions, having won the 2018 race by a margin of three lengths, and leading overall with 83 victories to Oxford's 80 (excluding the 1877 race, officially a dead heat