Four days of madness, four days of British racing fans' heaven

	Downloads Bookmark this site Set as homepage Andrew W Scott

Four days of madness, four days of British racing fans’ heaven - the 'festival' they call Cheltenham

By Scott Ferguson

I love my racing carnivals in Australia - from spring in Melbourne to winter in Brisbane, from Cup weekend in Darwin to the wild week of Warrnambool. Stringing together a few days of quality racing can inject life into a sleepy town filling beds in every hotel, motel and B&B within miles and packing nearby pubs to the rafters into the wee small hours. The regular travellers book their accommodation for next year when paying their bill. It soon becomes an annual, unmissable event for the true racing fan.

To be trackside on any given Saturday is one thing, but being able to fraternise with industry participants from owner to jockey, leviathan bookie to the earnest travelling punter, creates a special atmosphere rarely matched at a regular meeting, particularly those where you have to return home to your normal existence the morning after. Think of it as a bit like home and away season matches versus finals time.

Australian racing is very much focused on city racing and seems to only be heading in one direction. Perhaps I'm just getting old and a country boy at heart but what's wrong with spreading the wealth and excitement around the nation? Sharing black-type races more often around the nation would give provincial and country racing a boost, give more owners a shot at winning and a chance to see their horses competing. I'm not talking of sending the Doncaster to Coffs Harbour but city tracks race too often and don't need to keep all the Listed and Group III races to themselves. Decentralisation might start to reverse the trend of thinking the country revolves around the big cities. Victorian harness racing has addressed this issue in recent years and is stronger for it.

British racing has its premier tracks but manages to spread the black-type or pattern races as they're called in Europe a little wider. To be fair though the geography and politics in Britain doesn't allow a system of racecourses to be deemed as London, Manchester, Birmingham etc.

The Europeans use the term festival rather than carnival to denote their linked race meetings. The mightiest of them all has just taken place in Cheltenham, a town in Gloucestershire, some two hours west of London by train.

Cheltenham is something special. A town of maybe 100,000 people becomes swamped in mid-March by four days of racetrack crowds nearly as big as the township. The track itself is a natural amphitheatre, set in the Cotswolds, a beautifully hilly part of the countryside.

Most Aussie punters will have heard of Royal Ascot, particularly since Choisir and Takeover Target have flown in to beat the local sprinters in recent years. Royal Ascot is the biggest festival for flat racing in Europe, but it is more about being seen and dressing up in clobber you'd never wear anywhere else because some old bird in a pale green dress will be paraded down the straight in a horse-drawn carriage. For the man in the street punter, the Derby at Epsom is the event for the people, particularly those on the cheap tickets atop double-decker buses on the infield of the undulating course. But even that is quite high-brow - only colts can run in the Derby, no fillies and none of those common-as-muck geldings.

Cheltenham has the class racing, the parties, the travelling punters and the atmosphere. Jumps racing or National Hunt as the locals call it has that special aura. The people's horses of the UK are jumpers - think Phar Lap or Makybe Diva in Australia and the Brits would answer that with Red Rum and Best Mate. Racing on the flat is dominated by a handful of rich blokes who spend milions at yearling sales and send the potentially great ones to stud after five runs. Jumpers can be owned and trained by the hobby trainer, battling through the frigid British winter with dreams of winning a race at the Festival. You don't even need to ask where, everyone knows you mean Cheltenham.

When you first look at British racing, jumping means the Grand National. The National is the Melbourne Cup over fences - as long a race as you'll get in the land and a race for the people; a handicap. When you look for the best quality over fences and hurdles, then Cheltenham is where you want to be. It's a bit like comparing the quality of Derby Day at Flemington to Cup Day. One is the best racing you'll get, the other is a massive party seen around the world on TV.

Cheltenham is all about the battle between bookies and punters. The Irish love their jumping and fly over in droves to attend for the week. You've never heard the crowd roar like they do when an Irish-trained favourite wins, especially on the final day which is usually a day or two before St Patrick's Day. Funnily enough Guinness is a major sponsor at Cheltenham...

Fields are rarely smaller than ten and often well above twenty runners. Most races are set weights or the jumping equivalent of weight-for-age. Handicaps do get a run, but as with most of the world outside Australia, they cannot attain the highest status of race, Grade (Group) I or even Grade II.

The bookmaking industry lives and dies each year on the success of the favourites at Cheltenham. When the big-name favs come home, bookmaker share prices drop as annual profits will take a significant dive. But just as often, the bookies have a field day as race after race throws up winners at double-figure odds.

Four days of punting on high-quality equine talent makes Cheltenham the place to be in the middle of March. To pitch down there for the whole week requires enormous stamina, it has broken many a man who thought his liver and wallet knew no boundaries.

The Irish come in droves and take no prisoners. Not content with leaving their gambling at the track, all-night poker games pop up at many a hotel - something to avoid like the plague as a rookie because the canny old Irish bloke who has been sipping his Jameson's all night will have all tomorrow's punting money in no time. Many a visiting punter a wee bit wet behind the ears has been skinned in a late night poker game.

Cheltenham is something special. They race no more than 16 times a year at the venue, and even then it is divided into a New and Old course, as well as the hurdle and steeplechase tracks. Running four days straight isn't a problem even during a wet spring, the ground is kept remarkably fresh and not overworked. Compare that to Flemington or Randwick and their recent battles with biased tracks.

If you're like me then you would never have heard of Cheltenham unless you were in the betting industry looking abroad or you've met a few British punters. But one thing's for certain, if you're ever looking to do a World Tour of Punting, Cheltenham in March simply must be on the list!