Stakes raised in hunt for gold fever

The sport of horseracing is rich all year round in the most precious of metals. Even the likes of Exeter stages a Gold Cup. But in terms of profits, the Cheltenham National Hunt Festival, which starts today, is along with Royal Ascot the purest of commercial gold.

That the climax on Thursday is the Gold Cup, itself, couldn't be more appropriate.

The three days of Cheltenham are worth millions to the racing world, to bookmakers trading at the track and in high street shops all over London, and to the town's tourist industry. The racecourse, alone, takes more than £5 million in gate receipts.

The Cheltenham Festival is the only racing occasion of the year - apart from Royal Ascot - which is forced to declare itself a sold-out, all-ticket affair with a strict daily limit of 50,000 customers, paying up in advance. That's been the case for three years now, and since 1999 for Gold Cup day. In recent years, the Festival has also taken on an international dimension.

It's well known that thousands of Irish return to Cheltenham year after year, but increasingly they are now joined by visitors from mainland Europe, and even Americans who learn of the Festival legend.

The scale of the meeting today is, for a sport that spans four centuries, a relatively recent development. The tented hospitality village, with room for 8,000 covers at up to £325 a head, now stands on ground where 30 years ago runners in the Gold Cup would line up for the first strides of the three-and-a-quarter-mile test.

Cheltenham's commercial manager Peter McNeile recalls: "The corporate village began as a modest marquee or two. Now tents cover a couple of acres, including the old Gold Cup start which is now the North car park. It's been an evolution which, at an average of £260 per head, yields more than £2m on each of the three days."

Since the early Seventies with a low-key corporate presence, growth of the Cheltenham Festival has, with each decade, accelerated at a pace. The prize money reflects this.