An interesting idea, but did it fly with the panel?
In the latest episode of the Paddock, Oli Bell provided his blueprint to what a five-day Cheltenham Festival would look like, and how it might attract a new audience.
This week on the show, we’re joined by Oli, Rishi Persad, Nick Luck, Tom Stanley and incredibly special guest Gold Cup winning Jockey Nico de Boinville.
The panel dives into Constitution Hill, schooling, Cheltenham contenders, and Nico’s thoughts on the Gold Cup including his ride on Jango Baie this season.
On the five-day festival potential, Bell said: I think once again the 5-day conversation will probably come up, as it always does around Cheltenham.
“I saw what happened at Southwell, which was a really popular night, with a lot of students coming for the first time.
“My idea is this: You go Monday to Friday, so you’re not competing with the Saturday sport audience.
“The Monday is a non-festival race day, it’s like an Invades race day, where you get new fans, students from the area, to come racing.
“On the Monday you have Handicaps, for horses that maybe aren’t good enough to run in the festival, but a competitive Handicap card, with one exception: you put the Mares’ Hurdle, as a non-festival race, on the Monday, maybe make it a Grade 2, but you run it for some good money. And you run it on the new course, so you have two days for the ground to come back to itself.
“Therefore it might slightly remove the appetite for an owner or trainer with a good Mare to run the horse in the Mare’s Hurdle at the festival, because people want festival winners.
“So you still have something that supports the Mares’ programme.
“And then in the evening, you have your music acts, all your students there, and you have your opening ceremony for the festival night. You can maybe build that into a preview.
“So you have five days would make commercial sense, that’s why they want to do it. You have all the stands up the shopping village, all the commercial benefits for the Jockey Club.
“If they are adamant on five days of racing in the middle of March, that is a solution that I believe will please both sides of the argument.”
For the panel’s reaction to the idea, watch the show below!
The Paddock is a show hosted by Oli Bell, with weekly episodes with the best tips, news, talking points and special guests from the world of horse racing. Catch The Paddock on YouTube, or listen on podcast – wherever you get your podcasts.
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