Cheltenham racecourse insisted on Wednesday it has “no plans” to add a fifth day to its Festival meeting in March or switch to a Wednesday-to-Saturday format, in response to a newspaper column in which the trainer Alan King suggested he had been won around to the idea of a five-day Festival following a “long chat” with the track’s new chairman, Martin St Quinton.
King’s weekly column in the Racing Post’s Weekender publication reports St Quinton as arguing that extending the current Tuesday-to-Friday Festival to Saturday would “attract a different crowd, rather as they do on the Saturday at Royal Ascot”, while either the Ryanair Chase or the Stayers’ Hurdle would move from its current slot on Thursday to be the new extra day’s feature event.
Speculation the Festival could be extended to five days next year has been widespread since New Year’s Day, when St Quinton declined to rule out the possibility in an interview with ITV Racing.
“It would get a lot of opposition,” St Quinton, who replaced Robert Waley-Cohen as Cheltenham’s chairman in October, said, “but people don’t like change. People complained when it went from three days to four, but now everybody loves the four-day Festival.
“Royal Ascot was very similar with the Heath meeting on the Saturday and now that is their most popular day, so you’ve got to be open-minded about these things.”
Cheltenham issued a blunt denial of the claims on Wednesday, however. “We have four fantastic days of the Festival running Tuesday to Friday,” a spokesperson for the track said, “and no plans for a fifth day.”
Like any well-run business, Cheltenham is generally keen to keep its options open and not rule anything out. Yet the commercial case for a Saturday at the Festival, whether it is as part of a four- or five-day meeting, is not as clear-cut as some recent speculation might suggest. The demand for high-margin corporate hospitality packages, for instance, would be expected to fall significantly on Saturday, leaving a hole in the balance sheet that would be difficult to fill.
Comparisons with Royal Ascot, meanwhile, could also be misleading. Ascot is less than an hour from London by train, while Cheltenham is at least two hours even on a direct train and its station is more than two miles from the track.
A Saturday in June faces also very little competition from other sports. A Cheltenham Saturday in March, on the other hand, would be staged at the height of the football and rugby union seasons, and face fierce competition for ticket sales, television viewers, airtime and media coverage. With the weather also a big factor for what could be much more of a “walk-up” crowd, attracting and keeping a “different crowd” on a Festival Saturday could well be a much sterner task than many suppose.
Newcastle 12.15 Flat To The Max 12.45 Double Martini 1.20 High Fort 1.55 Dark Regard 2.25 Indian Raj 3.00 London Arch 3.30 Corked 4.05 Clareyblue
Catterick 12.25 Pour Me A Drink 1.00 Massini’s Dream 1.35 Geordielandgangsta (nb) 2.05 Pileon 2.40 Little Bruce (nap) 3.10 Nefyn Point 3.45 Captain Woodie
Leicester 1.10 Wenceslaus 1.45 Wells De Lune 2.15 Litterale Ci 2.50 Lightly Squeeze 3.20 Quantum Of Solace 3.55 Stolen Silver
Chelmsford 4.00 Coviglia 4.30 Roca Magica 5.00 Avorisk Et Perils 5.30 Agent Shiftwell 6.00 Cheng Gong 6.30 Phoenix Star 7.00 Arabian Moon
