12 Fun Facts About the Cheltenham Festival

The Cheltenham Festival is one of the biggest events in the horse racing calendar. Every year, thousands of people flock to the city to watch or take part in this four-day event. Here are 12 fun facts about the Cheltenham festival that you might not have known.

It Hasn’t Always Been in Cheltenham

The festival was originally called the National Hunt Chase and the first one was held in Leicestershire rather than Cheltenham. For a few years, it moved around various locations in the midlands before finding its home in Cheltenham in 1911.

Duration

Originally the festival took place over two days but was later changed to three days. The current festival is four days long and was increased to this length in 2005 with races being changed to include one major race on each day of the festival.

Royal Association

The Royals have always been keen horse racing fans and they are often seen at the Cheltenham festival. So much so that in 1959, one of the main races of the festival, which is called ‘The Queen Mother Championship Race’, was named after one of the event’s biggest supporters.

Capacity

The Cheltenham Festival is a huge event with an average attendance of 65,000 per day. The last day is the most popular as this is when The Gold Cup Race is held. The capacity of the racetrack is 75,000.

Staff

The four-day festival requires a lot of staff to run smoothly. Positions such as bookies, security, bartenders, and many others are kept busy for the four-day festival. In total, there are around 5,936 staff employed to work at the event. 350 of these are chefs.

Travel Travel has to be planned carefully during the Cheltenham festival as there are so many visitors to the town. Almost 135,000 arrive by train, there are 50 staff coaches arriving per day from all over the country, and an extra 30 flights travel between Dublin and Birmingham during that period. A total of 36,500 vehicles are parked at the racetrack over the four days.

Economy

The Cheltenham Festival brings a huge boost to the local economy with industries such as hotels, hospitality, and transport reporting a roaring trade over those four days. An extra £100,000,000 is brought into the local economy every year during this time.

Betting

An average of over £600,000,000 is placed on bets over these 4 days. Many people bet online or at a betting shop, but the racegoers like to place bets too. In fact, in 2016 a total of £2,300,000 was removed from cash machines around the racetrack during the festival. There is no way of knowing if all of this money went on the horses or whether some of it went on food, drink, and the cab fare home. However, this figure does not take betting on debit or credit cards into account, so the total amount placed on bets is likely to be higher rather than lower than this figure.

Winnings

Betting is big business at the Cheltenham festival with almost everyone who attends betting on at least one race. In 2018, there was a record £4,590,000 given away in prize money. The largest amount of prize money available is £626,000 for The Gold Cup. If you are hoping for a share of this, click here for some expert Cheltenham racing tips.

Celebrating

People who win big like to celebrate their winnings. This is evident by the estimated 20,000 bottles of champagne that are consumed during the Cheltenham festival. For those who aren’t big alcohol drinkers, an estimated 8,000 gallons of tea are poured during this time too.

Equality

Horse racing has been dominated by men over the years and women have only recently got a piece of the action. In 2018, Katie Walsh became the first female to win a grade 1 race. She was followed by Bryony Frost and Rachael Blackmore in 2019.

Golden Miller

In 1936, Golden Miller became the first horse to win The Gold Cup and The Grand National in one season. That must have been some horse!

These are 12 fun facts about the Cheltenham Festival. Attend the event and see what you have been missing out on.