Cheltenham effect helps boost January crowd figures as festival tickets selling fast

TWO bumper days at Cheltenham helped British racing start the year with the highest average attendance for jump meetings in January since 2016, and the continued draw of Britain’s premier jumps track was underlined by reports that ticket sales for this month’s Cheltenham Festival are buoyant.

The course’s New Year’s Day meeting attracted 38,374 people, which was 10,000 more than in recent years, while 21,024 were at Festival Trials day on January 28. Those big turnouts played a big part in boosting the average attendance at jump meetings in January to 2,888, which has been bettered only by 2016 (3,624) since 2009.

That healthy figure was achieved despite the abandonment of the traditionally well attended Clarence House Chase card at Ascot and Haydock’s Peter Marsh Chase meeting.

Other notable turnouts were the 4,574 at Doncaster on Sky Bet Chase day, the highest figure since 2018, and 4,449 at Warwick for the Classic Chase, where the crowd has increased virtually every year since 1,694 attended in 2011.

However, the impact of rail strikes was apparent when only 2,348 made it to Sandown for the Tolworth Hurdle, down from 5,415 just three years ago and the lowest for that meeting since at least 1989, although the crowd has previously been boosted by ticket offers.

Ian Renton, Jockey Club Racecourse’s regional director for Cheltenham and the South West, said: “We have had a brilliant start to the year at Cheltenham with a record attendance on New Year’s Day and the biggest crowd since 2017 on Trials day.

“It was great to announce that Gold Cup Day has sold out by the end of January and we are 94 per cent sold out in our hospitality facilities. We have limited availability remaining for Champion Day, Festival Wednesday and St Patrick’s Thursday.”

Last year’s record total of 280,627 racegoers at the Cheltenham Festival will not be beaten in 2023 as the daily capacity has been capped at 68,500.