In 2011 Cheltenham celebrated a century of hosting the world’s most famous National Hunt Festival and celebrations at racing’s most famous meeting were as noisy as ever.
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The 2012 Festival will run from 13th to 16th March and the course can expect to welcome over 200,000 racegoers from all over the world, with it believed that more than £500 million will be gambled throughout the week. The greatest jump horses in the world will all head to the Festival in search of a place in the record books and all of the sport’s leading figures will be targeting the fixture.
The week builds towards the world’s most prestigious National Hunt race, the Cheltenham Gold Cup on Friday, while other highlights include Tuesday's Champion Hurdle, Wednesday's Queen Mother Champion Chaseand the World Hurdle on Thursday.
For racing fans and the people that attend Cheltenham, the Festival offers an unrivalled path of excitement and the action is always sure to be explosive, exhilarating and thoroughly intriguing. The monumental clash between the top English and Irish horses helps encourage the sport’s more battle-hardened punters to make the trip to Gloucestershire and with the latest Cheltenham tips firmly lodged in their minds, the war that ensues with the bookmakers is even more epic than action on the track.
Racing’s most loyal spectators are captivated simply by the incredible standard of the event and many will be able to recall their favourite Festival race. Perhaps the older ones were there for the epic Gold Cup contests in the 1960s between the incomparable Arkle and brave Mill House; others will have marvelled at Dawn Run and the achievements of Desert Orchid, whilst Kauto Star's triumphant second Cheltenham Gold Cup in 2009 will also rank highly for many.
But the likes of ‘King Kauto’ are the latest in a long list of Cheltenham legends which date back nearly 200 years to 1815 when the first recorded flat racing meeting was held on Nottingham Hill. These races were a tentative affair of which little is recorded and it was a further three years before another meeting was staged, this time on Cleeve Hill which overlooks the current Cheltenham racecourse site.
Fast forward to 2012 and the Cheltenham Festival is now widely viewed as one of the UK’s premier sporting events. The build up to meeting dominates the entire racing calendar and each year attendances continue to grow, with those not able to make it to the course tuning in online, on the television or by listening on the radio.
For true racing fans the action on the track represents the ultimate test of horse and jockey, for those arriving with money for the war with the bookmakers it is as exciting and as energy-sapping as the races themselves and for the owners the emotions experienced when landing a winner at the Festival outweighs anything they have spent getting there.
As a result racing fans will return to Cheltenham in March and the nation will embrace ‘The Greatest Show on Turf.’
