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Cheltenham gave its faithful racegoers something to cling to at the 2025 Festival. Moving the meeting to incorporate a Saturday would just ruin any good work and offer a slap in the face to those who support it year on year. Punters have just about come to terms with the switch to four days. But the notion of moving it from Tuesday-Friday to Wednesday-Saturday has gone down like a broken lift. Cheltenham organisers say they are “nowhere near” making a decision on the possibility of switching and that’s good because it needs to be nipped in the bud. Right now. Course chief executive Guy Lavender told the Racing Post: “As a leader, you have a remit to investigate a range of options. I think this one certainly has some merit for investigating. There are different partners we would need to speak to and we would need to do modelling work on the financial implications to give us a view on the risk and opportunities.” Here’s the partners they should be talking to first. The folk who have and had spent thousands of pounds year on year to attend. Attendances have crashed at the Festival in the last three years with 280,627 in 2022 sliding to 218,839 for this year’s staging. That’s not down to the days it is staged. That’s down to what punters believed was the event becoming not value for money. In 2025, steps were made it the right direction. Record Sport commented upon it and praised at the time. As was stated, there is unfortunately only so much the racecourse can do because they just can’t stop the price hikes outside from hoteliers and other outlets whacking up charges. If people who own bog-standard hotels are charging £400 a night to rip people off, the chiefs at the track can’t help that. But they can help themselves on their own ground and they did. Over 200,000 seemed to really enjoy it. The lesser crowd makes it 20 times more enjoyable for the racegoer. Everything wasn’t a queue. You could get a drink without waiting for ages, you could get to the toilet pronto, you didn’t bump into someone every two minutes. From the minute you walked into the front door, the welcome from the staff was exceptional. Key improvements were vital and so simple. Whoever within the Jockey Club decided that phoning B&Q to order about a million park benches and picnic-style tables and chairs got it bang on. The relaxed rules on alcohol consumption outside of the bars. It has a two-fold effect. Firstly, it spreads the crowd. People don’t congregate at bars when they can wander around after being served, meaning you can have a more-even spread of people and also open passages to be served. Also, as folk were able to take a pint outside to watch a race, there wasn’t the rush to finish it before the race started. That meant people weren’t sculling half a pint at once when they can’t handle it. Cheltenham has got themselves some momentum back and announcements last month a 30p reduction in the price of a pint of draught beer or cider and a cut in daily capacity from 68,500 to 66,000 to avoid any issues of overcrowding seems another big step forward in getting those where have been lost to come back. Don’t kill the steps forward by this Saturday nonsense. For those who point to increases in crowds for big other Saturday meetings, also take a cautionary tale with The Derby. Moved from a Wednesday where the world watched to a Saturday in 1995, it’s lost its identity. Overshadowed by other occasions. This year attendance at Epsom just over 22,000, a 17 per cent drop from the year before and nearly 60 per cent lower than in 2001. It’s been a hefty decline. Moving Cheltenham to a Saturday, with presumably the Gold Cup in there, could also see it shrink into a background. Right now, it stands alone on a Friday. Go to a Saturday and you’ll be clashing with Six Nations rugby and English Premier League matches. The Grand National start time has been constantly messed around at Aintree to try and find the right slot against other sports. Cheltenham should not fall into that trap with jump racing’s Blue Riband. The Gold Cup stands as the showpiece of sport on that Friday in March every year. Everyone watches it. Don’t lose that. Are hotel prices down to drop for a Saturday? Nope. Are taxis going to cut their fares for Saturday? Nope. Have you more chance of rail and travel disruption with strike days on a weekend? Yes. The outside factors which stop people going aren’t going to change. Sure there will be some advantages, but the race to attract new customers to racing should not be to the detriment of the people who prop it up right now. Those people are already saying no. Cheltenham will surely be smart enough to listen.
