Cheltenham Racecourse

The earliest records of horse racing in the vicinity of Cheltenham, including at Prestbury Park, the present home of Cheltenham Racecourse, date back to the first half of the nineteenth century. However, it was not until 1911 that Cheltenham Racecourse became the permanent home of the Grand Annual Chase, inaugurated at nearby Andoversford in 1834, and so began its evolution as the home of National Hunt racing.

Situated a short distance north of Cheltenham town centre, Prestbury Park is a natural amphitheatre in the foothills of the Cotswolds and, nowadays, home to two main courses, the Old Course and the New Course, both of which are left-handed and undulating and run side-by-side for much of the way. Despite its name, the New Course is only relatively new, having been used for the first time in 1967. A much more recent addition to the Prestbury Park venue was the Cross-Country Course, the only one of its kind in Britain, consisting of a series of unusual obstacles, including banks, mounds and rails, opened in 1995.

Cheltenham Racecourse is best known as the home of the ‘Olympics of horse racing’, the Cheltenham Festival, which, nowadays, is staged anually over four days, Tuesday to Friday, in mid-March, and features 28 races, including championship events in each and every discipline of National Hunt racing. The Cheltenham Festival was first staged, over two days, in 1911, extended to three days in 1923 – the year before the inugural Cheltenham Gold Cup, as a steeplechase – and, again, to four days in 2005. Offering in excess of £5 million in total prize money, the modern Festival attracts over 250,000 spectators over the four days. The ‘Blue Riband’ event of the week, the Cheltenham Gold Cup, run on the final day, is currently worth over £350,000 to winning connections.