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The Cheltenham Festival is a horse racing-based meeting in the National Hunt racing calendar in the United Kingdom, with race prize money second only to the Grand National.[1] The four-day festival takes place annually in March at Cheltenham Racecourse in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. It usually coincides with Saint Patrick's Day and is particularly popular with Irish visitors.[2]
The meeting features several Grade I races including the Cheltenham Gold Cup, Champion Hurdle, Queen Mother Champion Chase and Stayers' Hurdle. Large amounts of money are gambled; hundreds of millions of pounds are bet over the course of the week. Cheltenham is noted for its atmosphere, including the "Cheltenham roar", which refers to the enormous amount of noise that the crowd generates as the starter raises the tape for the first race of the festival.
Cheltenham Festival was not held between 1941 and 1945 because of World War II and in 2001 due to the foot-and-mouth disease crisis.
- ^ "Going is good for Cheltenham". BBC Sport. 17 March 1998. Retrieved 10 March 2009.
- ^ "Cheltenham festival gets underway this afternoon". The Belfast Telegraph. 10 March 2009. Retrieved 10 March 2009.