Festival Countdown
It looks like being a bumper Cheltenham Festival this year with pre-sales already hitting the 190,000 mark.
The most popular days are Wednesday, which happens to be St Patrick’s day this year and, of course, Gold Cup day on the Friday.
Indeed Friday is proving so popular that the course have said no tickets will be available on the day. The Best Mate and Grandstand enclosures are already sold out and there are only around 2,500 Club Enclosure badges left.
In keeping with the recession the tented village will be smaller this year, however hospitality sales are still around 10,000 each day.
As always there will be a huge Irish influx and for the first time there will be daily flights from Dublin to nearby Staverton Airport. The Aer Arann flights leave Dublin at 08:00 each morning of the festival, returning 20:00 each evening.
Course Managing Director Edward Gillispie describe the prospect of the Gold Cup clash between Kauto Star and Denman as something “very special.”
Clerk Of The Course and Director Of Racing Simon Claisse admitted his team are “a couple of weeks behind” in their preparation, directly as a consequence of the terrible weather.
The course has experienced its coldest winter in 31 years, where they have experienced 6 weeks of snow and frost since Christmas.
The one bonus is the course has had less rain than the rest of the country but still an inch more than average.
They managed to get their first mechanical work on the course last week.
The current going is Soft, Good to Soft in places and with a dry forecast for the remainder of this week they expect the going to be Good to Soft, Soft in Places by the weekend.
Edward Gillispie was asked about the prospect of the Festival moving to a weekend. He replied the most significant consideration would be the courses “commercial interests”, which must come first.
He conceded Racing For Change may facilitate a move to the weekend however it is “highly unlikely” this would happen in 2011 although it “may be a possibility in 2012.”
Reading between the lines his response is Cheltenham would not be adverse to a move in principle but it would have to be financially viable. Which probably means the Saturday hospitality income would have to match the midweek income.
He was also asked about ticket touts selling tickets outside the course. He responded there was little, legally, the course could do to stop the touts as racing tickets are not covered by the same laws as football tickets. He conceded it does allow potential racegoers to purchase tickets on the day when other tickets have sold out.