Cheltenham Tips Festival 2011
The Cheltenham Festival is the most prestigious meeting in the Nationwide Hunt racing calendar within the United kingdom, and has race prize income second only to the Grand Nationwide. It’s an event where numerous of the most effective British and Irish trained horses race against each and every other, the extent of that is relatively uncommon in the course of the rest of the period.
The festival takes location each year in March at Cheltenham Racecourse in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. The meeting is usually extremely popular with Irish visitors, mainly because of that nation’s affinity with horse racing, but in addition because it normally coincides with Saint Patrick’s Day, a nationwide vacation in celebration on the patron saint of Ireland.
Substantial amounts of income are wager in the course of festival week, with hundreds of an incredible number of lbs becoming gambled over the 4 days. Cheltenham is normally mentioned for its ambiance, most notably the “Cheltenham roar”, which refers to the huge amount of noise that the crowd generates as the starter raises the tape for the first race of the festival.
The official title from the Cheltenham Festival may be the National Hunt Meeting. This originated in 1860, when the National Hunt Chase was initial held at Market Harborough and titled the Grand National Hunt, featuring the 1 race alongside other steeplechases. After taking location at quite a few locations, including Cheltenham in 1861, the race returned to Cheltenham in 1904 and 1905. It absolutely was staged over a new program established at Prestbury Park, Cheltenham in 1902, while racing had taken place within the park previously. The Nationwide Hunt Meeting was held at Warwick from 1906 to 1910, but returned to Prestbury Park in 1911 and has remained there to this day. The earliest traceable reference to a “Festival” is within the Warwick Advertiser of 1907.
The Cheltenham Gold Cup, established in 1924, was the initial Championship race staged in the Festival, using the Champion Hurdle being introduced in 1927, the Queen Mother Champion Chase in 1959, and finally the Stayers Hurdle, which was 1st run in 1972.
In 2001 the Festival was cancelled due an outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Britain. The meeting had initially been postponed to April, but when a situation of foot and mouth was confirmed locally, putting the racecourse inside an exclusion zone, all racing needed to be known as off. In 2008 the next day of the festival was cancelled because of large storms which hit Britain throughout the week. The races scheduled for that day had been instead run around the Thursday and Friday in the Festival.
Until 2005, the Festival had usually been held more than the program of 3 days, but this changed with all the introduction of the fourth day, which means there could be one championship race on each day, climaxing using the Gold Cup on Friday. To guarantee each days would still have six races, 5 extra races were also launched. Two further races have since been extra bringing the total to 26 races overall, with Grade 1 occasions such as the Champion Bumper, Triumph Hurdle, Ryanair Chase, Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, Neptune Investment Management Novices’ Hurdle, Arkle Problem Trophy, RSA Chase, Champion Hurdle, Globe Hurdle, Queen Mother Champion Chase as well as the feature race, the Cheltenham Gold Cup.
The Festival also includes among the two greatest Hunter Chases of the time, the Foxhunters’, that is operate about the Friday over the very same course because the Gold Cup, and it is from time to time referred to as the amateurs’ Gold Cup.
In contrast to Royal Ascot and a lot of other leading Flat racing activities in Britain and Ireland, the Cheltenham Festival doesn’t have a history of attracting quite a few global contenders although French-trained horses have done well – Baracouda being possibly one of the most well-known, getting landed the Planet Hurdle twice. In 2010 Australian trainer Anthony Cosgriff, a former vet to Mark Johnston, plans to carry his staying novice hurdler Gorge, to operate within the Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle.
The 2010 Cheltenham Festival had the very first at any time running with the Women Charity Flat Race on Thursday eighteen March at 17:15 in aid of Cancer Investigation UK. The race was contested more than 1m 5F and all twelve beginner jockeys were feminine. The race was won on a photo finish in front of the packed Cheltenham grandstand by Ms Orna Madden from Dublin, Ireland riding Prince Picasso finishing just ahead of fellow Irish rider Ms Katie Doyle riding Devil To Pay out with Ms Helen Needham riding on Mr Wall Road in 3rd.
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