Cheltenham Festival

Cheltenham is a town with a great and varied history. Not only is it famous for the well-known Cheltenham Festival (Races) it used to be a town of spas, due to the discovery of mineral springs there in the late 1700s.

Even today, a lot of health facilities are associated with Cheltenham, with its station being christened Cheltenham Spa. But what about the Cheltenham Race Festival- the one thing we really care about? This popular festival faced a lot of hiccups before its inception. In 1829 when the race track was located at Cleeve Hill in Cheltenham, the local Parish Priest decided to preach the evils of gambling. This led to such a violent response in the congregation that the grand stand was burnt down preceding the race course meeting of 1830. This led to the shifting of the race track to Pretsbury Park- the modern day venue of the Cheltenham Festival.

The history of the Race Festival, since then has been pretty tame- except of course for its wildly growing popularity among the people. The Cheltenham Festival is traditionally held on St. Patrick’s Day making it very popular among the Irish. This occurs sometime in March. It consists of four championship races- the Gold Cup, the Champion Hurdle, the Queen Mother Champion Chase and the Stayers Hurdle.

The Cheltenham Race Festival indeed had a fascinating history and any racing enthusiast would be very interested in its development into one of the foremost Racing Festivals in the UK, today. To gather more information about this festival and the 2010 festival, visit www.cheltenham-races.com.