Near miss for protester
A man climbed through the running rail, around 100 yards from the winning post, as the horses flashed by him.
He was wielding a placard believed to be aimed at Ryanair, the low-cost Irish airline owned by Michael O’Leary.
O’Leary owns a number of horses, two of which won at the Festival on Tuesday, and was again in attendance at Cheltenham.
The man was wrestled to the floor by security staff at the end of the race, won by the Tony McCoy-ridden Albertas Run, and was promptly arrested. There were no reported injuries.
Edward Gillespie, Cheltenham managing director, said: “We put a security person on every possible exit in the championship races but we had no intelligence suggesting we had reason to do that for the Ryanair.
“We do get good intelligence from the police if something might happen. Nobody got hurt and the last time someone got on the course was about 20 years ago. It’s a police matter and they are dealing with it now.”
O’Leary said: “If some idiot wants to try and make some publicity for himself let him. If he’s prepared to run in front of AP McCoy riding a horse, let him.”
