The Cheltenham Festival 2015
It is that time of year again when The Cheltenham Festival is nearly upon us. Every year this major 4-day horseracing event takes place in the town of Cheltenham, England. The finest horses and trainers compete in the biggest races of the season watched by 60-70,000 people every day.
The Cheltenham Festival 2015 will take place between the 10th – 13th March.
Champion Day – 10th March 2015
“The famous roar as the tapes rise for the first race on Tuesday signals the moment when the 12 month wait is over and racing’s favourite fixture is back.” The opening day is always highly anticipated for racing fans as there is first grade racing with a lower crowd than the following days.
Ladies Day – 11th March 2015
This day not only also focuses on the fantastic racing but on the females in the crowd, this is the day to expect the women to wear the finest dresses with hats/fascinators to match. This day probably gets the biggest attention from the general media with celebrities always making an appearance on this day.
Betting information about Ladies Day can be found here at William Hill. http://sports.williamhill.com/bet/en-gb/events/cheltenham-ladies-day
St Patrick’s Thursday – 12th March 2015
This day is the biggest days for Irish fans and the day is an aim at celebrating St Patrick, the Patron Saint of Ireland. Thousands of fans from all across Ireland visit the city and attend the festival, especially on the Thursday of the Cheltenham festival.
Gold Cup Day – 13th March 2015
The biggest day of the racing week and arguably the jump-racing calendar is the Gold Cup day. The racing on the Gold Cup Day is as big as it gets in horseracing and tickets are normally sold-out for this day weeks in advance.
The Place: Cheltenham
The town is also known as Cheltenham Spa and sits just on the edge of the Cotswold. This is a small but fantastic town that really comes to life for 1 week during the year, the festival. Expect all hotels and B&B’s to be fully booked and every pub in town to be extremely busy. The atmosphere around the city is more of a party town during this week with thousands of visitors in the area for normally 1 or 2 nights.
Tickets
The best and least expensive method is to purchase your tickets prior to the race day as prices rise as much as £15 per ticket. Cheltenham racecourse also offer great prices for groups with a saving of around £20 per ticket. Tickets for the Gold Cup day always sell-out and therefore I would advise to purchase them at least 14 days before the festival.
Everyone needs to do the festival at least once in their lives! The roar at the start of the first race s spine tingling. The only draw back is how packed it gets. The racecourse is getting redeveloped as I type, and will be brand new for the 2016 festival. So hopefully it will be easier to handle the thousands of racegoers.
The racecourse itself sits in a natural amphitheater, and the noise bellows around the place. Check out the videos on YT and multiply the noise by 10!
Anyway good luck to all whos going and if you are thinking about it, do it!
Great site Adam, keep up the good work 🙂