What recession? The going’s good for the Cheltenham set

At three this morning Freddie Tulloch started making bacon sandwiches and smoked salmon canapés. He then packed them into the car along with cases of Taittinger and headed to Heathrow to board a coach for Paddington. There he picked up 30 men and women dressed in tweeds and avidly scouring the Racing Post.

Passers-by looked on at this bizarre mossy army taking over the drab pavements; and then they were off. Off to Cheltenham for what the cognoscenti refer to simply as The Festival. The greatest National Hunt meeting in the world.

Tulloch runs Sporting Agenda, a corporate events company, and Cheltenham is big business, even in the recession. "We leave Paddington at 9am and the champagne is flowing before we hit the Westway," says Tulloch, who installs a bar on the bus, and repeats the £135-a-head schedule each day for the four-day event.

Today it's a well-known fund manager who has asked not to be named, while tomorrow is a big name bookie and on Friday it's a bank. "We've lost a couple of clients but Cheltenham is still the event that everyone wants to go to because it's the one that the clients really love," says Tulloch.

There are considerable differences between the Festival and other big sporting and social events, as we shall see. A major one is that Festivalgoers are universally passionate about the sport. If Ascot is all about being seen then Cheltenham is all about being keen - on the horses and the courageous jockeys. Cheltenham holds a special place in racegoers' hearts. It will take more than the credit crunch to make it fall at the first.

As managing director of Cheltenham Racecourse, the affable Edward Gillespie is the man in charge and while it's his job to be upbeat it would seem he has grounds for optimism given yesterday's packed stands. "We are very pleased and have sold 200,000 advance tickets," he said. With walk-up sales they should reach 230,000 where 2008 was 250,000. By any estimation this seems to represent only a light bruising.

Gillespie cites several bulwarks that have helped fend off the effects of financial collapse. "It's an event that's out of the ordinary at a time of year when very little out of the ordinary takes place," he says. Also Cheltenham's timing, coming after dreary February and on the cusp of spring, means that people are in the mood for some cheering up.

The fact that you can get in for £20 and have a few pints and watch the world's best jumpers and jockeys helps. And Cheltenham appears to deny the recession as people look for a few days of old-fashioned fun and seek solace in a roar from the stands. "We get an enormous amount of people from London because it's not far and they want affordable escapism for five hours," says Gillespie.

He believes the Festival is resilient because it is an elemental proposition and accessible to all-comers. "We are not exclusive and not dependent on one or two sectors of society."

Cheltenham never set itself up as a social event. Ascot did and was successful but has lost its lustre and become known as racing's chav central. Meanwhile, Cheltenham has assumed a social kudos it didn't seek: "There are no pigeons parading as peacocks. It's about the racing, not the rag trade. It's a celebration of the horses and the jockeys and their heroism," says the Festival's own poet laureate, Henry Birtles, a television executive. This year, in the Royal Box, he will perform a typically rousing ode he has written about the legendary Arkle. The first lines sum up the spirit of Cheltenham:

Stand fast, breathe deep and feel this hallowed place,

That one more time has drawn them in with open arms,

And brought you here to celebrate its madness and its charms,

Where spirits rise and four March days wipe out the daily strain.

Yesterday he read the full version by the Arkle statue before having lunch with some old friends, among them Elizabeth Hurley. "Arkle is the yardstick by which all National Hunt horses are measured," says Birtles, "all fall short."

One yardstick by which the Festival's success is always measured is the betting figures. Last year punters on course bet around £1million on each race making the week's total some £30million. It is not unusual to see people with fistfuls of scarlet £50 notes thicker than the Bible.

Betting yesterday was buoyant and Clive Hawkswood, chief executive of the European Remote Gambling Association, which includes William Hill, Ladbrokes and Paddy Power, reckons the betting will be monumental. "I am sure turnover is going to be good for online, betting shops and on-course bookmakers," he said earlier this week. "Cheltenham is huge."

There are many short-priced favourites this year such as Master Minded trained by Cheltenham favourite Paul Nicholls in today's Queen Mother Champion Chase. Nicholls also trains both Denman and Kauto Star, which are again the two big names for the Gold Cup, the Festival's big race on Friday. If the punters go large on short-priced favourites and they come in, the bookies may face a recession of their own.

The total betting figure being touted around is between £400 million and £500million. We've become inured to vast figures recently but half a billion bet over four days is remarkable during the best of times. In a recession it's astonishing.

In addition, the field set aside for the helicopters has already had a bumper number of landing requests and it looks as if the sponsorship for the event has stayed robust.

That said, Cheltenham was canny in signing up its two main sponsors, JCB and Guinness, in multi-year deals so next year may be different "We pay around £50,000 to sponsor the JCB Triumph Hurdle," says Chris Wright, the company's global marketing director, "and for us Cheltenham is a great place to entertain all our UK and Irish clients where we have a large customer base."

That roaring Irish contingent - a fundamental part of the Festival with about 60,000 visitors and Ryan Air usually putting on 20 extra flights --is one area that has been affected. Gillespie estimates it at about 20 per cent down. Though the Irish will still be there in big numbers and the leading racing figures such as JP McManus and John Magnier will be in evidence (JP McManus, nicknamed the "Sundance Kid" has about seven favourites) Ireland was a big winner during the boom times and the impact of the recession has been significant.

The other no-shows will be senior figures in publicly quoted companies who have no genuine reason (such as being an owner) to visit. They simply do not want to have their pictures taken swigging champagne. Despite the duck of the Irish, if yesterday's jam-packed first day is anything to go, by the Festival might even do better than the predicted 10 per cent down. So how does it cock a snook at the recession?

In part it is because National Hunt racing is more about familiarity with the horses than flat racing. National Hunt horses are in the main geldings so they don't retire young. You see old champions return and the punters love this. Arkle and Best Mate won at four consecutive Cheltenham Festivals.

People still talk about Desert Orchid and Dawn Run's Gold Cups and the epic 1970s rivalry of Ireland's Monksfield and England's Sea Pigeon.

Piers Pottinger, deputy chairman of the country's leading communications company Bell Pottinger, has been coming for 30 years as spectator, owner and host.

"It is, without question, the foremost jumps meeting in the world," says Pottinger, "and there is simply no atmosphere in any sporting or social event that can compare."

Pottinger, who had a winner with King Harald in 2005 - the horse runs again this year - illustrates the Festival's tone. "Before the first race a group of us owners meet in a tiny bar and buy each other a pint of Guinness and wish each other the best of luck."

Pottinger will have a busy few days. Like many of the serious players he takes a large country house for the week. His preferred location is a property near Prince Charles's Highgrove. A dozen friends and clients ("I only have rogues, players and race lovers," says the jocular Pottinger) are invited.

Each morning they will have a cooked breakfast before being driven to the course by the two ex-Cheltenham policemen ("Good for short cuts").

Once on course they will head to Chalet 47 next to the Turf Club for drinks and racing chat before being joined by other guests and clients of Bell Pottinger who include BSkyB. Disney, Vodafone, Emirates and Rolex.

There will be lunch for 40-odd people each day but the main focus will be on the racing. It's considered very bad form to ignore the racing, to not go to the paddock or the parade ring.

Being flashy is also frowned upon. Swanky cars, bling jewellery and the spectacle of knicker-flashing drunken woman that you now see at Ascot are strictly not in evidence. The style is very shabby country. Yes, there are a fair few grand types knocking about but you are just as likely to see them in the Guinness tent rubbing shoulders with those who have paid £20 for their tickets.

It is fitting that the most coveted private boxes are the smallest and the most basic. Here you will find the Royal Box and the five or six that belong to the Vestey family of nearby Stowell Park. Known as the "beef baron", Lord Vestey (Sam) holds the royal title Master of the Horse and, with his wife Celia, will host the Queen at a lunch when she visits this Friday. It is the invitation of the week.

The Vesteys' boxes sit off an endearingly crumby corridor alongside the likes of the Holland-Martins (Ben Holland-Martin has a full bar in his), the Daleys (old-school racing family), and Col A J Collins. An invitation to this last box is regarded as very smart, not least because he has caviar. Never too much though, that would be vulgar.

The standard of food in the smartest boxes is that of an average school lunch. Anything flashy would be deemed very poor form. This is where Dukes eat sausage rolls. Perhaps the bankers should have come after all. They could have learned a lesson or two about frugality.