You might already know that the Cheltenham Festival is the biggest, best and most exciting event in the British jumps horse racing calendar. That’s the obvious bit. But to get you in the mood for this year’s extravaganza, here are 5 facts about Cheltenham that you probably weren’t aware of…
- Racegoers will drink more than 200,000 pints of Guinness, 125,000 pints of lager and 18,000 bottles of champagne at this year’s festival! That’s enough to keep everyone happy even if their horse doesn’t win!
- The bookies will take over £600 million of bets from eager punters this year! No wonder they have so many different offers and promotions to keep people coming back! Whatever they’re doing, it’s working.
- The Irish love Cheltenham! Over 10,000 racing fans will visit from the Emerald Isle this year.
- No wonder the big name horses, jockeys and trainers attend! There’s a total of over £4 million in prize money at stake, which is more than at any other jumps meeting.
- Ruby Walsh holds the record for the most wins by any jockey in a single year. He also won 4 races in a single day in the 2017 Cheltenham festival. Ruby’s record of 7 wins will be tough to beat, but records are made to be broken. Will it happen this year?
So there you go. Every day’s a school day, so we hope you learned something from these cool facts. If you’re planning to attend this year’s festival, then don’t worry about just being one of the statistics. Kick back and have fun, and hopefully back a winner or two!