During the National Hunt Festival from 11-13 March over 180,000 race-goers will descend on Cheltenham Racecourse in all modes of transport from coach, train and taxi to helicopter, plane and car to experience the thrill of the greatest three days’ racing in the sporting calendar.

From Bentley to BMW, Rolls Royce to Rover, Cheltenham’s car parks will be brimming with more than 10,000 cars, 1,000 coaches and 1,000 minibuses. The Festival we see today featuring 20 of the most hotly contested races in the entire racing calendar offering more than £2 million in prize money and £20 million in bets has developed beyond recognition since its beginning in the early twentieth century.
The Festival originated as the meeting that hosted the National Hunt Steeplechase (a four-mile race now run on the middle day). Back in 1904 Cheltenham was selected by the National Hunt Committee to host this important race, which enjoyed a status similar to the Martell Grand National. In those days, the race was run at a different Course each year.
This was a great honour for Cheltenham as the course had only been set out since 1898 and as soon as the meeting was over, plans were made to get the race back – on a permanent basis. A deal was subsequently struck between Cheltenham and the National Hunt Committee that stated if the Course were to invest in grandstands and paddocks, this could indeed become the home of the National Hunt Meeting. The race returned in 1911 and that is the deal Cheltenham is still honouring today, nearly 100 years on. The two-day meeting soon became so successful that it was extended to three and thus became known as The National Hunt Festival. Its creator, Frederick Cathcart, is remembered in one of the races of the meeting.
In any sport it is the athletes who create the interest and Cheltenham has been blessed with some memorable moments on the track including heroics and heartache with owners, trainers, riders and race-goers from around the world.
The first Cheltenham Gold Cup was a three-mile Flat race in 1819. The chase as we know it today was first introduced in 1924 and the winner Red Splash won a modest £700 compared to today’s prize fund of £350,000.
Golden Miller was the first horse to leave an indelible mark on the race winning a record five consecutive Gold Cups from 1932-1936 for his somewhat eccentric, part recluse owner Miss Dorothy Paget. No horse since has been able to surpass that record with Arkle being the most recent multiple winner of the race in 1964, 1965 and 1966. In fact, such is the competitive nature of the race that L’Escargot was the last winner of back-to-back Gold Cups over 30 years ago.
Dorothy Paget’s 26 Festival winners included eight Gold Cups and four Champion Hurdles, a record in itself. The passing of Golden Miller in 1957 and Dorothy Paget in 1960 marked the end of an incredible era. Little did they know their superiority would rule forever.
However, hot on their heels was a horse whose chance to overshadow Golden Miller was cruelly denied by injury. The legendary Arkle won three consecutive Gold Cups in 1964, 1965 and 1966 by ever increasing distances before being retired with a leg injury. Such was the horse’s dominance of the sport that the ‘Handicapping’ system was introduced to give other horses competing against him a better chance of winning!