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.
Denne historien er fra March 10, 2021-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra March 10, 2021-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Give it some stick
Galloping through the imagination, competitive hobby-horsing is a gymnastic sport on the rise in Britain, discovers Sybilla Hart
Paper escapes
Steven King selects his best travel books of 2024
For love, not money
This year may have marked the end of brag-art’, bought merely to show off one’s wealth. It’s time for a return to looking for connoisseurship, beauty and taste
Mary I: more bruised than bloody
Cast as a sanguinary tyrant, our first Queen Regnant may not deserve her brutal reputation, believes Geoffrey Munn
A love supreme
Art brought together 19th-century Norwich couple Joseph and Emily Stannard, who shared a passion for painting, but their destiny would be dramatically different
Private views
One of the best ways-often the only way-to visit the finest privately owned gardens in the country is by joining an exclusive tour. Non Morris does exactly that
Shhhhhh...
THERE is great delight to be had poring over the front pages of COUNTRY LIFE each week, dreaming of what life would be like in a Scottish castle (so reasonably priced, but do bear in mind the midges) or a townhouse in London’s Eaton Square (worth a king’s ransom, but, oh dear, the traffic) or perhaps that cottage in the Cotswolds (if you don’t mind standing next to Hollywood A-listers in the queue at Daylesford). The estate agent’s particulars will give you details of acreage, proximity to schools and railway stations, but never—no, never—an indication of noise levels.
Mission impossible
Rubble and ruin were all that remained of the early-19th-century Villa Frere and its gardens, planted by the English diplomat John Hookham Frere, until a group of dedicated volunteers came to its rescue. Josephine Tyndale-Biscoe tells the story
When a perfect storm hits
Weather, wars, elections and financial uncertainty all conspired against high-end house sales this year, but there were still some spectacular deals
Give the dog a bone
Man's best friend still needs to eat like its Lupus forebears, believes Jonathan Self, when it's not guarding food, greeting us or destroying our upholstery, of course
