March 3, 2003. Copyright, 2003, Graphic News. All rights reserved

Steeplechasing gears up for Cheltenham Festival
By Midge Todhunter

LONDON, March 3, Graphic News:  The Cheltenham National Hunt Festival is one of BritainÕs top ten sporting occasions, with a 50,000-strong crowd in attendance each day and Gold Cup day the highlight of the National Hunt year. Nine of the 20 races are Grade One Championships and total prize money exceeds £2 million.

Last month, the British Horseracing Board gave initial appoval to a plan to extend the Festival to four days from 2005, one of the most important developments in its 101-year history. Four new races will be added to the card and the Gold Cup will most likely move to the fourth day.

Consequently Cheltenham Racecourse is undergoing a £20 million investment programme, part-funded by the Levy Board, to improve track and facilities. Among the many changes planned, the course has been widened by 10 percent to provide a larger racing area, giving the best underfoot conditions for the horses, not only for the Festival but throughout the season.

Meanwhile CheltenhamÕs 11 full-time ground staff are preparing in earnest for this yearÕs event. Each fence is either rebuilt or revamped for the Festival meeting; a full rebuilding is scheduled every three years and each fence takes two men two weeks to build. New Jockey Club regulations say that by the end of 2004 all British racecourses must substitute plastic gorse or birch on fence aprons, as real gorse-prickles can stick into the horsesÕ legs and go septic, so the plastic variety is considered more user-friendly. Cheltenham is pioneering this and has already applied plastic gorse to its fences.

The racing surface receives constant attention throughout the year. The ground is repeatedly forked and any holes are filled by hand with soil and grass seed. Four weeks before the Festival a high content invigorator is applied which strengthens the grass in preparation for the 300-plus runners during the three days.
During each Festival race-day a team of 80 ÒtreadersÓ is based at fences and hurdles around the track to tread the ground after each race and replace divots of earth displaced by the runners.

Watering the track takes two days, and is always applied at 12mm each time. The water is extracted from the brook running through the middle of the course and held in the racecourseÕs own central reservoir, which holds six million gallons (27 million litres). A pump pushes water from the reservoir to the six Òrain gunsÓ around the track -- each gun reaches 50 metres in diameter.

This however, matters little to the passionate racegoers who flock to the Festival each March. Betting turnover is officially estimated at over £40 million -- more than £2 million per race -- and among the crowds can be heard thousands of Irish accents. CheltenhamÕs famous annual Irish invasion dates back to 1948 when Tipperary trainer Vincent OÕBrien began a series of dramatic winning raids and betting coups at the course, beginning with Cottage RakeÕs victory in that yearÕs Gold Cup. Up to 7,000 racegoers now cross the Irish Sea annually, meeting up with many more British-based compatriots to make up around 20 percent of all Festival attendees.
/ENDS