Cheltenham begins formal talks over extending Festival to five days
GOLDEN: Rachael Blackmore kisses the Gold Cup.
Cheltenham racecourse says it has started formal consultations with owners and trainers over the possibility of adding a fifth day to its big Festival meeting in March.Â
A report in the Racing Post suggests that the Jockey Club, which owns the course, could seek to squeeze even more money from its biggest cash cow from 2024.
The Festival expanded from three days to four – Tuesday to Friday – in 2005 and speculation over the possible addition of a fifth afternoon has been a talking point in the meeting’s aftermath for several years. Royal Ascot and Glorious Goodwood, both Flat racing festivals in the summer months, are currently the only five-day meetings in the British calendar.
Until now, however, the course has not conducted any formal consultation with interested parties, or set what appears to be a deadline – of this autumn – for a decision on the move, ahead of a switch to five days in just under two years’ time. The expectation is that two races would be added to the current 28, to create a meeting with six-race cards each day, rather than the current seven.
The Racing Post’s report quotes Ian Renton, Cheltenham’s managing director, as suggesting that the track will “get people’s opinions so we can take a much more rational view on how people feel”, that it will “listen to everyone’s views” and that it is “not going to make any decision lightly”.
Initially the consultation will include owners and trainers, but it is also likely to expand to the track’s annual members. Whether there will be any attempt to survey non-members who attended the Festival in recent seasons, to assess whether they might feel short-changed by six races in an afternoon rather than seven, is unclear.
There will also be a host of practical issues for the course to address before taking any decision, including the running order for major races during a five-day Festival ending on Saturday. The Gold Cup is currently staged on Friday, the final day of the meeting, when it effectively has the British sporting field to itself. On a Saturday it would face stiff competition, both for attention and spectators, from Premier League football and Six Nations rugby. If the Gold Cup stayed in its now-traditional Friday slot, however, the Saturday card could risk becoming an afterthought.
Further dilution of the Festival’s competitiveness will also be a concern, not least after a Grade One novice chase at this year’s meeting attracted just four runners, all from Irish stables. The lack of high-margin corporate hospitality business on Saturdays will also need to be factored into the calculations, along with the availability – or otherwise – of the thousands of casual staff required to work in the track’s bars and restaurants.
The Cheltenham Festival has become the Jockey Club’s biggest money-spinner over the course of the last 30 years, and some fans will see the formal consultation on a fifth day as being motivated by little more than greed. The extent and sincerity of its “consultation” may be an interesting test of its claim to consider the long-term interests of racing as a whole, and not just its own bottom line.
