With the Cheltenham Festival around the corner, many horse racing enthusiasts might be looking for different tips online and articles on how to make the most of horse racing free bets; however, there are many other aspects throughout the Cheltenham Festival that are quite interesting that horse racing fans might not know about! With many different facts about the history of the festival, we will go through some of the most fascinating facts about the event, as the four-day annual tradition is one of the most well-documented and interesting horse racing events throughout the entire sport.
Facts About The Cheltenham Racecourse
The Cheltenham festival is incredibly iconic because of how it looks, with the triple-deck tented village catching the eye of many spectators. It is known to be the biggest in Europe, with the 40,000 square metres of concourse being massive in size, yet many people do not know that these grandstands are only temporary and are placed solely for the Cheltenham Festival.
The Cheltenham Festival racecourse was actually closed and cancelled for the first and only time in 2001 due to an outbreak nearby. Cases of foot and mouth disease were confirmed in the local area, causing concern for the disease to spread rapidly across the Cheltenham Festival. Therefore, this placed the iconic Cheltenham racecourse within an exclusion zone, leading to the event being called off.
Facts About The Racing At Cheltenham Festival
There are some interesting facts about the figures of the Cheltenham racecourse, as it is a huge venue with plenty of space for horse racing action. For example, there are 12,320 yards of white running rails on both sides, whilst there are 21 separate hurdle positions. With 5,000 bundles of birch used every single year, there are 28 jump races, which are incredibly iconic due to the special bundles.
In 2019, there were a number of records set at the Cheltenham Festival, with one of the most impressive numbers being the highest opening attendance, which saw 67,934 spectators visit the event. This was also the same year that the largest prize money pool was broken; over the 4 days, the prize pool was a record-breaking £4,590,000, surpassing an average of £1,000,000 per day by far, making it one of the most impressive years!
When looking at who has the most wins throughout Cheltenham, Ruby Walsh stands clear with 59 wins, whilst Barry Geraghty sits in second place with 43 wins. For trainers, Willie Mullins sits comfortably clear as the most successful Cheltenham Festival trainer of all time with 94 wins, whilst second place Nicky Henderson sits with 73 winners.
Facts About Travelling To Cheltenham Festival
As the Cheltenham Festival is located in a remote section of Gloucestershire, there are limited ways to actually get to the venue itself. To help with this issue, the organisers make sure there is a shuttle bus service that can transport people to and from the venue. This transports up to 80,000 people every year, yet this is still not the main means of transportation! The Cheltenham Spa train station sees almost 135,000 visitors making their way through its gates over the four-day period, making it incredibly popular.
Air traffic also increases as the Cheltenham Festival attracts fans from all around the globe, with people visiting. Not only are there almost 100 helicopters landing and taking off each day, but the Ryanair airline puts on an extra 30 flights to the surrounding areas each year, showing just how popular the horse race meeting is!
Facts About Food & Drink At Cheltenham Festival
Whilst food and drink throughout the Cheltenham Festival is not one of the focal points throughout the festival, there are still many interesting facts which come from the Cheltenham Festival. For example, 2015 saw some in-depth tracking of different catering options and statistics, with 45,000 afternoon teas being served to guests over 4 days. The same number of bread rolls was given out to spectators whilst there were 8,000 gallons of coffee poured, too!
Throughout the four days, 9 tons of potatoes were consumed at the festival, and 5 tons of smoked and fresh salmon were consumed throughout the event. A catering team of 3,800 operates at the event each day, with 350 chefs and 350 managers working each day. With 15 restaurants and 30 temporary kitchens, there are 5 tons of cheese consumed throughout the festival.
Cheltenham Festival is not only full of horse racing action but there are plenty of other details that go into the event that make it possible, whether that be the catering team or the travel organisers. With all these people working together, we can see how much the Cheltenham Festival fever takes over the town of Cheltenham and horse racing fans across the globe.
