Cheltenham Festival To Remain At Four Days

[Wandering Eyes]

The Cheltenham Festival will remain a four-day event, the Jockey Club announced on Monday.

The success of the Festival has led to growing speculation in recent years that the showpiece meeting of the National Hunt season would be extended to five days.

However, the Jockey Club quashed that idea by confirming that, following extensive consultation and analysis into the best way forward for the sport, the fixture would remain in its current format. 

“At the Jockey Club we care deeply about the long-term future of our sport and its role in society. That's a mission that enables us to think differently when making decisions,” said Ian Renton, who runs Cheltenham as managing director of the Jockey Club's west region.

“While we explored the financial benefits and an opportunity to reach new audiences, we also found a number of counterpoints to this. For example, it is clear that it would be challenging from a turf management perspective, without further work on the track, and on balance we still feel 28 races over four days is the right format.”

He added, “This research allows us to do much more than simply answer the question of whether extending the Festival is the right thing to do. We will now evaluate all the insight with a view to improving our facilities, investing in new on-course activations and giving our fanbase, participants, owners and other stakeholders the best possible experience at Cheltenham Racecourse.

“We are extremely grateful to everyone who has taken part in this process and have welcomed the opportunity to listen to racehorse owners, participants, Jockey Club colleagues, the local community, our partners, loyal racing fans and many others with a passion for our sport and the Festival.”

The Cheltenham Festival is now Britain's third biggest sporting event in terms of attendance and attracted a record total attendance of 280,627 across the four days in 2022. This included record individual attendances for both Thursday (73,754) and Friday (73,875).

Following the consultation into the future format of The Festival it was announced in August this year that the event in 2023 (which is staged between Tuesday 14th March and Friday 17th March inclusive) will take place with capacity capped at 68,500 each day.

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