A horse that has competed and won over this lefthanded, undulating, stamina-sapping course with its big fences and daunting uphill finish can be assumed to be a good one. The fourday March festival taking place in Gloucester- shire this week is the showpiece; despite some valid concerns that Cheltenham has allowed its standards to become diluted, it remains the jump-racing championship.
Early racing at Cheltenham was on the Flat. The first meetings were staged on Nottingham Hill in 1815, then, from 1818, on neighbouring Cleeve Hill, the Cotswold escarpment of which now provides one of the most impressive backdrops of any British racecourse. The Cleeve Hill meetings were successful enough for a grandstand to be built on the slope visible from the town and, in 1819, the first Gold Cup was run, as a flat race over three miles. There was racing at Prestbury Park, the current venue, from the 1830s, as well as on Cleeve Hill, but it wasn’t until several years after W. A. Baring Bingham acquired Prestbury Park in 1881 that the shape of Cheltenham Racecourse as we know it began to take shape.
Denne historien er fra March 15, 2023-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra March 15, 2023-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.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Tales as old as time
By appointing writers-in-residence to landscape locations, the National Trust is hoping to spark in us a new engagement with our ancient surroundings, finds Richard Smyth
Do the active farmer test
Farming is a profession, not a lifestyle choice’ and, therefore, the Budget is unfair
Night Thoughts by Howard Hodgkin
Charlotte Mullins comments on Moght Thoughts
SOS: save our wild salmon
Jane Wheatley examines the dire situation facing the king of fish
Into the deep
Beneath the crystal-clear, alien world of water lie the great piscean survivors of the Ice Age. The Lake District is a fish-spotter's paradise, reports John Lewis-Stempel
It's alive!
Living, burping and bubbling fermented masses of flour, yeast and water that spawn countless loaves—Emma Hughes charts the rise and rise) of sourdough starters
There's orange gold in them thar fields
A kitchen staple that is easily taken for granted, the carrot is actually an incredibly tricky customer to cultivate that could reduce a grown man to tears, says Sarah Todd
True blues
I HAVE been planting English bluebells. They grow in their millions in the beechwoods that surround us—but not in our own garden. They are, however, a protected species. The law is clear and uncompromising: ‘It is illegal to dig up bluebells or their bulbs from the wild, or to trade or sell wild bluebell bulbs and seeds.’ I have, therefore, had to buy them from a respectable bulb-merchant.
Oh so hip
Stay the hand that itches to deadhead spent roses and you can enjoy their glittering fruits instead, writes John Hoyland
A best kept secret
Oft-forgotten Rutland, England's smallest county, is a 'Notswold' haven deserving of more attention, finds Nicola Venning
