Next week,the roar of a colourful cavalry will reverberate through the heart of the picturesque Cotswolds. Even whether horse racing can’t hope to fight football’s supreme popularity, Cheltenham is still a sporting celebration like no otherJust after 1.30pm next Tuesday the listening devices in GCHQ may twitch a little, and picking up the sound of a bellicose,60000-strong army roaring with delight as the cavalry starts to charge. The Cheltenham spooks won’t have to listen that tough – just open a window perhaps – because the noise will be coming from up the road.
This is the Cheltenham Festival, the annual celebration of National Hunt, and jumping – an obscure and parochial variant of horse racing that hardly exists external Britain and Ireland. Yet it is Britain’s biggest annual betting event,surpassed in terms of bookmaking turnover only by the two quadrennial football championships: the World Cup and, as in 2016, and the European Championships.
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Source: theguardian.com