Cheltenham Festival revellers fashion arrive for day one

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Fabulous racegoers have pulled out all the fashion stops on the first day of the Cheltenham Festival as the four-day meet returns to its pre-pandemic glory. 

Perfectly coiffed women donned eye-catching prints, thigh-skimming mini skirts and sequin frocks as they arrived in their thousands to take in the first day of the action. 

They were joined by VIPs including the Queen’s grandchildren Peter Phillips and Zara Tindall, and Zara’s husband Mike.

The high-spirited event, a highlight of the British racing calendar, is welcoming punters for the first time since 2020 after the pandemic forced organisers to hold last year’s event behind closed doors.

The famous festival was one of the last major sporting events to be held with spectators before lockdown in March 2020. It was accused of being a Covid super-spreader event, with a number of famous faces including Andrew Parker Bowles, comedian Lee Mack and footballer Charlie Austin all contracting the virus.

Over the next four days, as many as 250,000 horse racing enthusiasts are set to descend on the Gloucestershire course. 

To add to the excitement, revellers are set to bask in above average temperatures 60F (15C) today – and they certainly didn’t hold back in dressing for the balmy weather. 

Fashion designer Jade Holland Cooper was among the early VIP arrivals and showed off her figure in a flirty mini skirt, statement belt and Gucci logo tights. 

Elsewhere a gaggle of friends opted for all-out glamour in figure-hugging dresses, strappy heels and vibrant contrast handbags. They teetered into the course hand-in-hand, ready for a day at the races. 

Not to be outdone, men also pushed the fashion boundaries in suits in bold, look-at-me prints. One gentlemen turned heads in his deep magenta two-piece featuring a Seventies-inspired print. 

Another group decided on a theme and co-ordinated their purple velvet bowties, purple hats and violet-striped shirts. 

There was also plenty of classic country combos on show. Revellers who prefer to play it safe stepped out in their tweed, felt hats and smart three-piece suits.  

It comes after horse racing legend Ruby Walsh lifted the lid on what Cheltenham week is like for jockeys, why Irish domination is bad for the sport – and the reasons the Festival needs a fifth day. 

Walsh is Cheltenham’s most successful ever jockey with 59 winners, and now the 42-year-old is carving himself a second career as a racing pundit and TV personality.

While the jockeys are the main focus of the week, Walsh may now relish his position away from the cut and thrust of the sport, as he reveals it is not always an enjoyable week for those sitting atop the horses.

Speaking ahead of the Festival, he told SportsMail: ‘I would not be looking forward to the next five days of the lives of Paul Townend, Davy Russell, Harry Skelton, Harry Cobden, Rachael Blackmore and others. You just have the constant worry. The dragging of time between now and next Tuesday – it will feel like five months. 

‘I was an absolute nightmare prior to the Cheltenham Festival. In team sports you are part of a squad and you go into camps or you are part of a squad. In racing, who has a media officer? Jockeys and trainers don’t. 

‘It is hard to keep away from the spotlight. There will be no-one heading to Dublin airport to get on a chartered flight. They’ll be getting on the flight next to whatever punter is also on the flight talking to them. 

‘There is not a team hotel or an escorted bus into the stadium, they will have to walk into the racecourse with the crowd. Being a jockey is very different at that level from the top sportspeople in other sports. You watch the golf or Wimbledon and you see the courtesy cars flying by, I never saw a courtesy car pull up to bring me to the races.

‘It is a very different environment and it constantly keeps you in the pressure. You don’t want to be the person who is barking or snapping, but ultimately you are the one under pressure and I definitely did snap at people I shouldn’t have.’

For an industry so reliant on its punters, Walsh admits it is ‘huge’ to have fans back in attendance this week.

‘I was one of the lucky people who was at Cheltenham last year,’ he notes. ‘It was a strange experience and was nothing like I had ever experienced. Cheltenham is unique for National Hunt racing with its crowds.

‘That volume of people over four days, that cacophony of noise – it is incredible and it will play its part on horses, on trainers and on jockeys. It all adds to the mix and even simple things like helicopter traffic and helicopters are disappearing at the end of the racing, they are so loud. It is just noise and atmosphere.’