The 2009 Cheltenham Festival Review

ef=”http://www.squidoo.com/Cheltenham-Racing-Review” target=”_blank”>The Cheltenham Festival Review 2009

This year the Cheltenham Festival adds another chapter to it’s history.

The Queen will have a runner in the Cheltenham Gold Cup for the first time next week with a horse left to her by her late mother, prompting a flurry of bets at Buckingham Palace.

Emotions will run high if the horse triumphs as the Queen’s distinctive colours – purple, scarlet and black – have never previously graced the winner’s enclosure at the Cheltenham Festival.

The late Queen Mother, a regular attendee of the Cheltenham Festival, also never managed to carry off the main prize. It was Queen Elizabeth who owned the sole royal winner at the Festival since the Second World War, when Dave Dick rode Antiar to victory in 1965, but even that was not in the Blue Riband event.

The Festival takes place in mid-March each year around Saint Patrick’s Day, (March 17), and so attracts many tens of thousands of Irish horse racing fans as well as dozens of Irish horses, jockeys and trainers for the races themselves. The Festival is held at Cheltenham Racecourse in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, in the Cotswolds deep in the countryside of South-West England. Traditionally the event was held over three days but in 2005 an extra day was added and the new format has remained.

The Gold Cup

There are twenty-five races in all, but the Cheltenham Gold Cup is the highlight of the Festival. The race is for horses of five years old and above and is run over a course of three miles and two-and-a-half furlongs, or 5 331 metres, that includes twenty-two fences.

The first winner, on March 12, 1924, was the five-year-old Red Splash. The legendary horse, Golden Miller, won the race on five consecutive occasions from 1932-1936 with a variety of jockeys, while Cottage Rake, Arkle and Best Mate also won three consecutive races.

In 2007 Kauto Star silenced his critics in scintillating fashion and propelled himself into the upper echelons of racing history when careering away with the totesport Cheltenham Gold Cup.

2008’s Gold Cup was a duel between the two finest equine specimens Britain has seen in decades, the stable mates Denman and Kauto Star. For weeks racegoers could speak of nothing other than the showdown between the two rivals that are billeted next to each other in trainer Paul Nicholls’s Somerset yard. Their closeness extended beyond their accommodation: such was the balance of their qualities, few could put a cigarette paper between their chances. Colossal figures were staked on their relative merits.

As the race was called, 60,000 enthusiasts crammed the grandstands for a view, anxious to witness sporting history, to say they were there. And in an atmosphere so charged it sizzled, Denman blitzed the field. Guided with immeasurable skill by his jockey, he led from the front, leaving Kauto Star seemingly dazed in his wash.

Who will be in the winners circle at the Cheltenham Festival 2009?

Further information can be found at the Cheltenham Festival Review site and our Cheltenham Festival Betting Site.