Read more
The annual Cheltenham Festival takes place this week. Picture: Alan Crowhurst/Getty Images
While British and Irish media try to explain a recent decline in crowd numbers at the Cheltenham Festival – the “Olympics of jumps racing” – there has been a spike in travel bookings for a vastly different type of destination at the very same time.
Punters at the cheaper end of the market are opting for the Spanish beach resort of Benidorm.
Comprehensive TV racing coverage, ubiquitous online betting, and booze at a fraction of the price; and you enjoy the famous race meeting at a bargain price.
You miss out on the fabled atmosphere of Prestwick Park racecourse in the Cotswolds – notably the “Cheltenham Roar” that echoes through the Chiltern Hills as runners are sent on their way. But a sunny spot at the poolside with smartphones and Margueritas to hand might compensate – especially if it’s hosing down back in Blighty.
The annual festival starts on Tuesday, with 28 races worth £5-million (R118-million) in the offing over four days – including the Gold Cup, Europe’s premier steeplechase.
For jumps racing fans these titanic battles over hurdles and fences are the blue riband of an equine sporting code that is always faced with a new obstacle – or suspended above it, in midair before a muddy landing.
Animal rights campaigners are a constant challenge, a controversial decision to race on in the shadow of Covid-19 was blamed for spreading death, and rocketing prices are slowly changing the image of a working man’s pursuit to hobby of the toffs – as the Brits would say.
Still, more than 250,000 people will pass through the gates, with about 70,000 likely on Gold Cup Friday.
Many of these will be “The Irish”, a horde of punting fanatics in green from across the sea for whom Cheltenham is Mecca.
And the old story about a flood of office sick notes coinciding with packed trains on eastward lines out of London is still a thing – even though a sneaky day out at Cheltenham does not come cheap.
Entrance to the enclosure with the best view of the finish is £100 (R2,360). A pint of Guinness is more than £8 (R190).
The tide of money is great for the local area that welcomes tens of thousands of fans. A recent estimate of the festival’s economic impact on Cheltenham and surrounding area was £270-million a year.
A scene-setter by news agency AFP (carried by outlets all over the world) quoted trainer Jamie Snowden as describing Cheltenham as “the equivalent of the Colosseum without the blood”.
“It is the best taking on the best in a wonderful cauldron,” said Snowden.
Fellow trainer Henry de Bromhead agreed: “People tune in from all over the world. It’s a cliché, but it is our Olympics; the best competing against each other. It is when the spotlight is being shone on our great industry.”
De Bromhead, pulled off a sweep of the three top races – Gold Cup, Champion Hurdle and Queen Mother Champion Chase – in 2021, and will have 15-20 runners this year.
Snowden will saddle only five but is just as excited.
“The festival is made by the spectators,” he said. “I mean I go as a fan, not just as a trainer, as I want to watch the best of England and Ireland compete.
“The ambience in the racecourse village with Irish and British spectators alongside each other is very special; it has a real buzz about it.”
Exiles in Benidorm will miss out on that buzz, which will be particularly buzzy on Tuesday when the popular bet of the festival, unbeaten Constitution Hill, tries to regain his Champion Hurdle crown after missing last year’s race.
Will the beach bums even be standing by Friday, when Galopin des Champs bids to join a select club with three in a row in the Gold Cup?
Download our app