Racing’s leadership is in chaos, but dramatic exits will be confined to the Cheltenham circuit

IIn the long-forgotten days of thirty or so years ago, when the Cheltenham Festival was a three-day gathering for country types, no-one thought much about attendance figures, the price of beer or maximizing the customer experience. It was a coming together of the National Hunt clans, much anticipated and greatly enjoyed, but in the grand scheme of things not an event with a story to tell about the overall health of the sport.

But not anymore. The state of the Cheltenham Festival is a key indicator of the state of the racing nation as a whole, and perhaps more so than ever this year as the sport heads to Gloucestershire rudderless after Charles Allen, who took over as chairman of the British Horseracing Authority just six months ago, proved to be a temporary asset. There is even talk of schism in the dysfunctional racing family as showpieces, including Cheltenham, demand change “to ensure significant insights from key racecourses can influence results”.

This is a sport that needs a reason to look up and forward, not always backward and down. And where better to find that reassurance than the meeting that, in terms of betting turnover, now hosts a majority of the top 40 races every year?

In 2013, fifteen festival races were still in the annual top 40. By 2022, all 28 races were in the top 35. Even the Festival Hunter Chase, with amateur riders aboard obscure point-to-pointers, is now on the list, as punters recycle winnings from the previous Gold Cup.

The Derby, for many years the second most popular race on an annual basis after the Grand National, didn’t even make the top 10 last year. However, the Martin Pipe Novice Handicap Hurdle, the final race on Gold Cup day, fell to number 5 as backers took one last chance to bet on the festival before the 361-day wait for Tuesday’s Supreme Novice Hurdle.

But while these four frenetic days in March are still as popular as ever with off-course punters, the festival’s inability to get bodies through the gates has become a growing concern over the past three seasons. There was a record attendance of 280,627 for the first post-Covid festival in 2022. Since then, total attendance has fallen year on year, and last year’s total of 218,839 was down 4.9% from 2024, and a whopping 22% below the 2022 peak. The picture is even more depressing on the first three days, which have seen a quarter of their live audience in three years lost.

It also seems racegoers have fallen out of love with the festival, rather than Cheltenham itself. Attendance at the circuit meetings earlier this season was at record levels, including an attendance of 44,151 for New Year’s Day, surpassing the total of 41,949 on the Wednesday of last year’s festival.

However, these are not like-for-like swaps. An additional racegoer elsewhere does not compensate for one lost in March. Festival goers generate more turnover and profit per head, and many times more in the case of business customers in hospitality boxes and chalets.

Guy Lavender, CEO of Cheltenham since January 2025, has already introduced a range of measures to improve the customer experience at the track, including an end to the long-standing ban on taking alcohol onto the grandstand lawns, the introduction of an indoor food court in the tented village and (slightly) cheaper beer. The car parks have also been modernized and a plan is underway to reduce the cost of on-site accommodation.

Lavender, who joined Marylebone Cricket Club from a similar role, was on site for just three months last year, but the 2026 festival is his first with a full 12-month run. As such, daily attendance figures will be closely scrutinized for indications that word is beginning to spread among the festival’s lost fans, and attendance figures can be primed for a much-needed revival. The first signs seem promising.

The other key indicator of the week, meanwhile, will be the track, which Irish-trained runners have been clearing for a decade. A 14-14 draw in 2019 is as close as the home side have come to outright victory in the Prestbury Cup since 2015, and the overall scoreline for the past decade is now 175-101 in Ireland’s favor as one layer of greenwash has been slapped on top of another.

Even though no one expects a return to the 1980s, when the Irish were happy with a few winners, the mood at the start of the festival is unusually optimistic. Nerves will be spared on the opening day with Constitution Hill sent to the Flat and Britain still holding the Champion Hurdle favourite, in Dan Skelton’s The New Lion.

Skelton has seen his very realistic hopes of a first-ever National Hunt trainer’s title crumble into dust at this meeting over the past two years. However, this could be the week he gets his revenge. In addition to The New Lion, he is second favorite for Wednesday’s Champion Chase at L’Eau Du Sud and live runners at single odds in a number of more Grade Ones.

It is, of course, impossible to approach the festival with anything other than an atmosphere of childlike anticipation and optimism. Hopes were high for a British revival 12 months ago, after a 4-3 victory on the opening day, finishing 20-8 to the Irish.

But there is clearly a sense of greater depth in this year’s home side, with well-known team leaders – Skelton, Nicky Henderson, Paul Nicholls – also joined by live runners from smaller operations. This is reflected in the fact that there can only be one or two odds-on shots during the week, after two years with seven players each. And whatever else happens over the first three days, Harry Redknapp’s King George winner The Jukebox Man could deliver one of the best festival stories in decades during Friday’s Gold Cup.

Racing’s leadership may be in chaos, but at Cheltenham the stage is set and the horses are fit and ready. Over the next four days, dramatic exits will be limited to the circuit.