What is the Cheltenham Festival?
The Cheltenham Festival is the most prestigious horse racing festival in Britain. Even though the Grand National receives more attention, and the Epsom Derby attracts the millionaires, and heads of state, true racing fans consider the Cheltenham Festival the biggest event of the year. The Festival takes place in mid-March each year, and so attracts tens of thousands of Irish horse racing fans as well as the dozens of Irish horses, jockeys and trainers participating in the races. The Festival is held at Cheltenham Racecourse in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, in the Cotswolds, deep in the countryside of southwest England. Like the Aintree Festival that includes the Grand National, held in early April, the Cheltenham Festival is a National Hunt racing event where the races are not run on the flat, like the Epsom Derby, but over jumps and fences. Some of the races are steeplechases, running over two to 4.5 miles (3.22 to 7.24km) through a variety of fences and ditch obstacles that are a mini
