Cheltenham Festival
Posted: Tue Mar 15, 2005 7:58 am
Well it's that time again here. The Cheltenham national Hunt Festival of horse racing started today. Crowds of 50-60,000 are expected every day for four days. helicopters are all over the place flying the well heeled into the course, I passed a pub at 8.30 this morning and they were serving Guinness with breakfast. Over 70,000 Irish are expected to attend in the four days.
One of my greatest recollections of this event was in 1986, I am not a brilliant writer but will do my best to share it with you and try and give you a flavour of the event.
Cheltenham Racecourse nestles under Cleeve Hill on the edge of the Cotswolds, every year in March it holds the most prestigious National Hunt festival in horseracing. the blue Riband event is the Cheltenham Gold Cup.
In 1986 one of the pre race favourites was a horse called Dawn Run, ridden by the Irish jockey Johnjo O'Neil. neither the horse or the jockey had been doing that well in the weeks before the race. In fact Dawn Run when seen in the flesh never appeared that prepossessing.
3.5 miles in soggy ground over big fences needs courage and stamina, the final straight is severely uphill and tests the bravery of horse and rider.
As I recall it was very wet that year and the ground was sodden.
With two fences to go there were four horses in with a chance, the most tired looking was Dawn Run, at the second from last Dawn Run found a jump from heaven and was back in it, at the last fence it seemed she had lost momentum again, then halfway up the straight the little mare started to pick up ground, her head and ears came up and she reeled in Forgive and Forget to get into second place, the feeling ran through the crowd it might just be, but no, in front was the big tough and strong Wayward Lad, suddenly the Lad started to wander. Johnjo asked this bravest of horses for one last effort and slowly but surely she came up the hill easing away yard by yard, the stands rose as one and 40,000 paddies plus this Englishman roared their heads off for the most courageous display I have ever seen from this magnificent animal.
This is how I remember that day and why I love horses and horse racing, I must add that after getting severely drunk that night I cannot recall anything in the eight hours following the race
One of my greatest recollections of this event was in 1986, I am not a brilliant writer but will do my best to share it with you and try and give you a flavour of the event.
Cheltenham Racecourse nestles under Cleeve Hill on the edge of the Cotswolds, every year in March it holds the most prestigious National Hunt festival in horseracing. the blue Riband event is the Cheltenham Gold Cup.
In 1986 one of the pre race favourites was a horse called Dawn Run, ridden by the Irish jockey Johnjo O'Neil. neither the horse or the jockey had been doing that well in the weeks before the race. In fact Dawn Run when seen in the flesh never appeared that prepossessing.
3.5 miles in soggy ground over big fences needs courage and stamina, the final straight is severely uphill and tests the bravery of horse and rider.
As I recall it was very wet that year and the ground was sodden.
With two fences to go there were four horses in with a chance, the most tired looking was Dawn Run, at the second from last Dawn Run found a jump from heaven and was back in it, at the last fence it seemed she had lost momentum again, then halfway up the straight the little mare started to pick up ground, her head and ears came up and she reeled in Forgive and Forget to get into second place, the feeling ran through the crowd it might just be, but no, in front was the big tough and strong Wayward Lad, suddenly the Lad started to wander. Johnjo asked this bravest of horses for one last effort and slowly but surely she came up the hill easing away yard by yard, the stands rose as one and 40,000 paddies plus this Englishman roared their heads off for the most courageous display I have ever seen from this magnificent animal.
This is how I remember that day and why I love horses and horse racing, I must add that after getting severely drunk that night I cannot recall anything in the eight hours following the race
try not to antagonize roving gangs of paddies! 