The Cheltenham Racecourse is the site of numerous races during the famous Cheltenham Festival. Each race provides explosive and exciting moments of action.
Headlined by the Gold Cup, the Cheltenham Festival is a 4-day fiesta with thousands of horse racing fans enjoying the action and having fun. Usually held during early-mid March, it starts with the Champion Hurdle and ends with the prestigious Gold Cup.
The Gold Cup itself is one of the biggest horse races in the UK second only to the Grand National. Throughout the years, it has seen legendary horses participate and win including Golden Miller and Arkle.
The Gold Cup
The Gold Cup is a steeplechase run over 3 miles, 2 furlongs, and 70 yards with 22 fences to be jumped as well. Open to horses aged 5 years or older, it’s one of the top National Hunt events and is often referred to as the Blue Riband in jump racing.
As the Festival’s biggest achievement, the Gold Cup has an immense economic and socio-cultural impact on Gloucestershire. First of all, millions are placed in bets every year which supports the region’s economy nicely. Punters love betting on the Gold Cup and have won a tremendous amount of cash by betting on long-odds dark horses.
Facts about Cheltenham
There are many facts about Cheltenham you don’t know about which show its massive scope. From tons of food consumed to the number of chefs on site, these Cheltenham facts will blow your mind.
- The average attendance during the Festival is 65,000. That’s a crowd that would put many Premier League teams to shame. The maximum capacity is 75,000.
- In 2015, Cheltenham visitors drank over 45,000 cups of tea. The same year, visitors ate more than 45,000 bread rolls. On average, around 9 tons of potatoes are eaten during the Festival.
- More than £100,000,000 are placed in bets every year. That’s more than enough to give the region a nice economic boost. The record amount of prize money during the Festival is £4,590,000. That’s over £1,000,000 per day and more than any Jumps festival around the world.
- The Magners Cheltenham Gold Cup prize purse is a whopping £625,000.
- The National Hunt race at Cheltenham has a distance of 21,120 feet. The shortest distance raced is 2 miles.
- Every year, over 8,000 gallons of coffee and tea are served.
- The Festival employs nearly 6,000 in staff every year.
- Over 4 days of racing, more than 134,600 people use the Cheltenham Spa train station.
- There are around 350 chefs on site!
- More than 20,000 customers use Ryanair to fly from Dublin to Birmingham during the Cheltenham Festival. One of the leading low-cost airlines in Europe puts in 30 extra flights during that period.
- Quevega is the horse with most consecutive wins in any Cheltenham Festival with 6. The horse won the Mares’ Hurdle between 2009 and 2014.
- Security is tight at the Festival with over 100 helicopter movements every day.
- Visitors place more than 35,000 vehicles on the grounds’ parking lot over 4 days.
- The shuttle bus between the Racecourse and the town makes over 80,000 movements during the 4 days.
There are 5 feature races at the Cheltenham Festival – Magners Gold Cup, Betway Queen Mother Champion Chase, Unibet Champion Hurdle, Ryanair Chase, and SunBets Stayers’ Hurdle.
No matter what race you decide to wage your money on, be sure to have fun and bet responsibly.
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Suzanne Ashton, Founder of Everything Horse (Est, 2012), has a BA Hons in Marketing Management and a Diploma in Equine Science. Suzanne has ridden and owned horses all her life and has twelve years of experience in marketing, writing, design, SEO, and website creation.