Cheltenham Confirms Makeover Plans

Cheltenham Racecourse has confirmed plans for a £30m makeover of the famous track, but stressed that the Festival will remain unchanged during the building work.

The work has also meant that any prospect of the Cheltenham Festival being extended to five days has been postponed while the redevelopment takes place.

Plans will be finalised over the summer, with improving the grandstand facilities the main focus of the £30m budget.

The course’s managing director, Edward Gillespie said: ‘They’re lovely buildings, they’re perfectly serviceable but they’re in a place where we’d like to put better, bigger, more modern buildings’.

Cheltenham Racecourse has also announced that family-owned producers of Single Highland Malt Scotch Whisky, Glenfarclas, is to continue its sponsorship of Cross Country Steeplechasing for a further three years.

The deal will now go up to, and including, the Cheltenham Festival in March 2014.

The company currently sponsors a series of events at Pau in France, Punchestown in Ireland, and all three of Cheltenham’s Cross Country races.

The three Glenfarclas Cross Country Steeplechases, which are all covered by Channel 4 television at Cheltenham, take place at the Open in November, the International in December, and the Festival in March.

Glenfarclas has been running an incentive to encourage international competition, whereby any horse remaining in the same ownership throughout, and running in the Punchestown and any Pau race, would then be eligible to run at the Festival in Cheltenham for double prize money that season.

Charles Hamer, marketing director of Pol Roger, the European distributor of Glenfarclas, added: ‘Renewing this relationship with Cheltenham for a further three years will, we hope, go a long way to achieving our goal of making Glenfarclas the ‘turn to’ Malt Whisky of the Racing World’.