The Cheltenham Festival is less than a month away now and we at Rocket Hospitality are hoping for a more successful festival than last year where we had a combined total of two winners during the festival.
It’s the biggest National Hunt Festival and brings together many British and Irish trained horses each year and takes place annually in March usually starting on a Tuesday and ending on a Friday when the biggest race, The Cheltenham Gold Cup, takes place.
It probably has the best atmosphere of any festival and has a real party feeling and is really popular with Irish visitors who often combine a trip to Cheltenham with a trip to the Six Nations rugby. The infamous “Cheltenham roar” refers to the noise that the crowd make when first race on the Tuesday gets underway and last year over two hundred and fifty million pounds was gambled.
The Cheltenham Gold Cup is the biggest race at the festival and takes place on the last day and is a grade one national hunt race ran over a distance of about three miles which takes in twenty two fences. Last year there was prize money on offer of over half a million pounds and the race was won by Lord Windermere.
The festival was actually cancelled in 2001 due to an outbreak in the UK of foot and mouth disease and in 2008 there were severe storms which meant the second day of the festival was cancelled.
If you are looking to experience Cheltenham hospitality yourself we have several packages available including shared and private boxes and a new facility hosted by racing legend and current Champion jockey AP McCoy.
If you get down to Cheltenham we hope you have more luck than we have tended to do over the last few years.