History of Racing and Cheltenham Racecourse
Colonel William Fitzhardinge Berkeley established racing on Cleeve Hill in 1819 giving an annual subscription on 1990's values of £100,000. A course was mapped out and an annual three day event took place under the patronage of the Duke of Gloucester. A crowd of some 20,000 attended each meeting with Punch & Judy shows, candy sellers, booths and travelling minstrels surrounding the course.
The Reverend Francis Close, Cheltenham's newly appointed Parish Priest, was determined to stop the racing as he thought gambling was immoral and that it was obscene that such vast amounts of money should change hands when many people in the town were living in abject poverty. His first sermon on the subject entitled”The Evil Consequences of Attending the Racecourse Exposed” preached to a packed church with 3,500 copies distributed around the town.
The result was that in 1829 the annual race meeting was disrupted when a large group of his disciples hurled abuse, rocks and empty bottles at the riders and horses. Whether or not it was a direct answer to prayer, or the work of a zealous arsonist, the following year the grandstand caught fire the night before the annual meeting and was burned to the ground. Racing at Cleeve Hill was abandoned and Francis Close had won the day.
But the fiery vicar hadn't reckoned on the popularity of his arch rival, the swashbuckling Colonel Berkeley. Racing at Cleeve Hill had been on the flat but the dashing Colonel thought this was too tame and in 1845 he instigated Cheltenham's first steeplechase which took place from Noverton Lane in Prestbury across country to the Hewletts.
For a number of years different venues were found for meetings and it wasn't until Mr Baring Bingham bought Prestbury Park in 1898 that racing was once again truly established. He built the grandstand, erected rails around the course and in 1902 a two day Cheltenham Festival was held. This was the forerunner of the Cheltenham scene enjoyed today.
(Extracts from “Racing's obstacle course” and “Coarse side of a fine horseman” - In the Town articles by Derek Dawson, Gloucestershire Echo, Lifestyle)
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In 1902 The Cheltenham Racecourse Company bought Prestbury Park, a grandstand and clubhouse were built in 1908 and a racecourse station, on the main railway line, opened in 1912. In 1964 Racecourse Holdings (now Jockey Club Racecourses) was formed to secure the future of Cheltenham.
Sixty permanent staff rising to approximately 1,000 for a race meeting are employed with 5,000 racegoers at the Festival Meeting. The Festival Meeting is worth an estimated £50 million to the local economy and hosts the largest tented village of any kind at a sporting event. Over 2 million is spent each year on temporary facilities alone. Festival drinkers get through 18,000 bottles of champagne and 214,000 pints of Guinness.
Throughout the year over 700,000 people are welcomed to the Racecourse.