This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Cheltenham Racecourse" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(April 2025) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Cheltenham Racecourse

Handicap chase, 2014
Interactive map of Cheltenham Racecourse
Location	Cheltenham,Gloucestershire
Owned by	Jockey Club Racecourses
Screened on	Racing TV,ITV (TV network)
Course type	National Hunt
Official website

Cheltenham Racecourse at Prestbury Park, nearCheltenham,Gloucestershire, England, hostsNational Hunthorse racing. Racing at Cheltenham took place in 1815, but comprised only minor flat races on Nottingham Hill. The first racing on Cleeve Hill was on Tuesday 25 August 1818 when the opening race was won by Miss Tidmarsh, owned by Mr E Jones. It was a year later when the results were printed in the Racing Calendar when a programme of flat racing was watched by the Duke of Gloucester who donated 100 Guineas to the prize fund. By 1831 races were being staged at Prestbury, although not on the present day course. In 1834 the Grand Annual Steeplechase was run for the first time.^[1] In 1839 Lottery won the Grand Annual having previously won the first Aintree Grand National. In 1840 the meeting transferred to Andoversford for a brief period, only to return to Prestbury in 1847. 1902 was a notable year in that racing moved to the present course at Prestbury Park. The new stands were completed in 1914 and the present day Festival races, as we know them, began to take shape. The Cheltenham Gold Cup, over 3 ¼ miles, was run for the first time in 1924, with the Champion Hurdle following in 1927.^[1]

The course's most prestigious meeting is theCheltenham Festival, held in March, which features several Grade I races including theCheltenham Gold Cup,Champion Hurdle,Queen Mother Champion Chase,Ryanair Chase and theStayers' Hurdle.

Theracecourse has a scenic location in a naturalamphitheatre, just below theescarpment of theCotswold Hills atCleeve Hill, with a capacity of 67,500 spectators.Cheltenham Racecourse railway station no longer connects to the national rail network, but is the southern terminus of thepreservedGloucestershire Warwickshire Railway.

The main racecourse has two separate courses alongside each other, the Old Course and the New Course. The New Course has a tricky downhill fence and a longer run-in forsteeplechases than the Old Course. Hurdle races over two miles on the New Course also have a slight peculiarity in that most of the hurdles are jumped early on in the race with only two hurdles being jumped in the last sevenfurlongs. The Old Course is the racecourse used for The Showcase, The November Meeting and the first two days of the Cheltenham Festival.^[2] There is also a cross-country course which is laid out inside the main racecourse and is used for cross-country steeplechases.

The racecourse is the home of The Centaur, one of the largest auditoria in theSouth West of England. This multiple-use complex seats over 2,000 people for conferences and around 4,000 standing for concerts.^[1] It is also home to theSteeplechasing Hall of Fame. From 1999 to 2013, the racecourse was the venue for the annualGreenbelt festival and remains the venue for theWychwood Music Festival. TheUniversity of Gloucestershire holds its graduation ceremony and summer ball at the racecourse.

In 2001 during the2001 United Kingdom foot-and-mouth outbreak, the 2001 Cheltenham Festival was cancelled for the first time since 1943 due toWorld War II.

From 2008, the racecourse and The Jockey Club were in talks withCheltenham Town F.C. about a possible move to the racecourse. This would have meant the building of a new stadium with a double-sided stand, one side in the stadium and the other for watching the races. In 2011, Cheltenham Town F.C. decided against the move for financial reasons.^{[citation needed]} The racecourse featured in the 2010 novelJump! byJilly Cooper.^[3]

In 2015, Cheltenham Racecourse opened the £45m 6,500-capacity Princess Royal Stand,^[4] which completed the redevelopment of the course.^[5]

• ^BBC (2011)."Cheltenham Town decide against racecourse move". Retrieved4 March 2023.
• ^BBC (2005).New developments at Cheltenham Racecourse. Retrieved November 14, 2005.

• Cheltenham Racecourse (Official website)
• Follow the National Hunt Festival '08 with BBC Gloucestershire
• Go behind the scenes with BBC Gloucestershire's Virtual CheltenhamArchived 2011-03-12 at theWayback Machine
• Panoramic photos of Cheltenham RacecourseArchived 2008-12-30 at theWayback Machine
• Map sources for Cheltenham Racecourse

51°55′13″N2°3′28″W / 51.92028°N 2.05778°W /51.92028; -2.05778

• Cheltenham Racecourse
• Horse racing venues in England
• Sports venues in Cheltenham

• Pages using gadget WikiMiniAtlas
• Articles needing additional references from April 2025
• All articles needing additional references
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use dmy dates from April 2022
• Use British English from February 2023
• All Wikipedia articles written in British English
• Pages using infobox mapframe without shape links in Wikidata
• Pages using infobox racecourse with unknown parameters
• All articles with unsourced statements
• Articles with unsourced statements from April 2025
• Webarchive template wayback links
• Articles with OS grid coordinates
• Coordinates on Wikidata
• Pages using the Kartographer extension