The Cheltenham National Hunt racing festival has reported its fastest-ever ticket sales and a dramatic "bounce back” in revenues following a disastrous Covid-afflicted two years in which its owner the Jockey Club lost £170 million ($227m).
The staggering financial impact of the pandemic has been revealed by Jockey Club chief executive Nevin Truesdale, who said overall income halved in 2020 and 2021.
With no spectators and no food, hospitality or catering sales the group, which runs 15 showpiece racecourses in Britain including Epsom home of the Derby, could have been brought to its knees without drastic action.
But the turnaround has been equally dramatic. Cheltenham, one of the highlights of the British sporting calendar, is leading a resurgence for the sport with the Jockey Club once again "firing on all financial cylinders”, said Truesdale. He describes the festival as the Premier League and Champions League rolled into one.
“We are bouncing right back,” he said.
“Attendances are 8 per cent up on where they were in 2019 and that shows to me people want to get back to sport in general. We are quite a good barometer. The lead indicators look very optimistic.”
Cheltenham is central to the overall Jockey Club financial fortunes. Although he would not put an exact figure on it, he indicated the course contributed up to a third of the Jockey Club’s total revenues.
It is one of racing’s crown jewels.
Asked how valuable it is, he replied: “We don’t actually break down the intrinsic value of Cheltenham per se, but it is fair to say it is a very, very, very valuable event.
“It sets the tone for our whole year. I am not going to go into numbers, but it is a significant chunk. More than 30 per cent.”
This year’s sales for the festival which starts for a week on March 15 shows that pent up demand is fuelling prospects of record attendances in the rush to return to normality.
“We sold out Friday before the end of January for the first time ever,” he explained. “Over the last week we have also sold out Thursday for general admission which has never happened before and we are 6,000 sales ahead of where we would normally be for Tuesday and Wednesday.
“We have never sold Cheltenham out this quickly.”
Rebuffing Covid super spreader claims
At the start of the pandemic in March 2020, Cheltenham was branded a Covid super spreader. Ten days before the first lockdown officially began, a quarter of a million fans had flocked to the track in the Cotswolds area of western England.
Critics argued it should never have been allowed to take place and accelerated the spread of the disease.
Truesdale categorically refutes this and any suggestion the course had acted irresponsibly. “We were very clear in the lead up [to the 2020 Festival] that we were following the advice from the British Horseracing Authority and the government. It is easy to forget that everything at the start of that week was very normal.
“We do feel what was said was unfair. The good news is that it hasn’t affected the brand and didn’t come up in a single sponsorship conversation.”
Regardless, the scenes at Cheltenham 2021 were markedly different with spectators banned from the course due to Covid restrictions.
Cheltenham 2020 v 2021: three contrasting pictures
Truesdale, the former chief financial officer, took over the reins 18 months ago following the short-lived tenure of his predecessor Delia Bushell.
He admits there were some "tricky days” and that without prudent action the situation could have been far worse. Insurance cover for the big events which had to be cancelled such as the Grand National helped to lift the pressure.
“Now there’s a really good sense of moving things away from the impact of Covid and starting to look forward,” he said.
Record horse racing prize money in 2022
Such has been the speed of the recovery that prize money levels were getting back to their pre-pandemic levels by last autumn and total Jockey Club prize money for 2022 is now the highest it has ever been at £58m, up £5m from 2019.
“Being able to do that was a first sign that we were bouncing back quickly. And we have bounced back quickly.”
After every Cheltenham Festival there is talk that the event - often described as "Jump Racing’s Olympics" - might be extended from four days to five. But while any such move would presumably boost profits and also attract new fans, Truesdale explains that a five-day Cheltenham Festival is definitely not on the table for 2023.
“We have got the festival to a very good place overall,” he explained. “But any sport needs to keep looking at its major assets and consider the long term and what is it you are going to do to continue to grow them.
“It is the top end stuff in any sport that people want to go to. People want to go to the Champions League Final or the Six Nations. They want to see these premium events.
“We would never make any big decisions around it without significant consultation with the industry. You always have to look how you are going to grow your asset and how you are going to attract a new audience into the sport. That is the Holy Grail. If we are going to stay the second best attended sport in the country that is going to naturally come from growing our big events.
“You can absolutely rule it out for 2023 but it is certainly something if we ever did do it, we would be consulting very heavily.”
From a racing perspective to my mind [Cheltenham] is the Premier League and Champions League rolled in to one
Having served as chief financial officer since 2013, Truesdale became "the boss” in late 2020.
“I am waking up in the middle of the night with knots of excitement in my stomach. I am more excited than anything else,” he said about the prospect of being in charge of his first full-bore festival.
“To have spectators back, to have the big Irish contingent back supporting their very successful horses; to have the shopping village functioning again. And that is before what happens on the track.
“A lot of people now see Cheltenham as the first big event of the year and the end of winter.
“From a racing perspective to my mind it is the Premier League and Champions League rolled in to one. It is that big.
“It has its place as a very significant player on the UK sporting calendar, up there with the Grand Prix, the Open [Golf Championship]. It is definitely in the pantheon of those events.
Royal seal of approval
The presence of legions of Irish fans as well as significant royal patronage adds to its unique feel and sense of occasion. “The Duchess of Cornwall is a very big fan of National Hunt racing. Having that link is extremely important. People underestimate National Hunt’s pulling power.
“They think of the queen and Epsom and Royal Ascot but the links through the jumps are in many ways just as important.”
With super power trainers such as Willie Mullins, Gordon Elliott and Henry de Bromhead, Irish trained horses won 23 of the 28 races last year.
“The Irish are currently in the ascendant. The rivalry is there. It is good to have a bit of a narrative around the festival. These things are cyclical though and it is not that long ago when the score was almost the other way round. So let’s not get too carried way.”