IT is going to be a strange, subdued Cheltenham Festival this year, something of a silent movie, and that will be most noticeable, symbolically at any rate, when the runners approach the tapes for the first race on Tuesday. Normally, there would be an almighty roar from 60,000 people in the packed grandstands, signalling that the nation’s four-day celebration of jump racing has started.
Next week (March 16–19), however, if you see a pint of Guinness, it is a mirage and if you spot an amateur rider, it might be Patrick Mullins, the 12-time Irish champion amateur, who was considering hastily taking up a professional licence in order to honour a book that included Sharjah in the Champion Hurdle.
The Festival today is the legacy of the two-decade stewardship of the late Lord Vestey, who died last month, as chairman—perhaps it’s better he does not see it in this muted incarnation—and his managing director, Edward Gillespie. Between them, they turned it into something much more than racing, a carnival of life, of spring, friendships, horses and, above all, sport.
In 2021, it will be stripped back to the bare bones. There are some who might rather enjoy that and, actually, ITV Racing has got this down to such a fine art after a year of crowd-less racing that its audience sitting on the sofa at home will hardly notice the difference.
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