Cheltenham festival at crossroads five years after infamous Covid meeting

Five years on from an other-worldly Cheltenham festival which unfolded in the shadow of Covid-19, in front of packed stands that would soon become emblematic of the country’s hesitant stumble into lockdown, one of Britain’s most popular sporting events once again finds itself at a crossroads, after sharp declines in attendance in the last two years.

It is not a lingering hangover from the pandemic, or the result of racegoers losing the festival habit in 2021, when the meeting was staged behind closed doors. Far from it. The first post-covid festival with full attendance in 2022 attracted record crowds throughout the week to post a new high for the four days of nearly 281,000 racegoers.

“I think there’s no doubt that it was a difficult festival last year, that’s been readily acknowledged,” Lavender said this week. “[But] if you look at the changes that have been implemented since last year, there’s some quite significant ones.

“The racing programme is moving in the right direction of creating more competitive racing and bringing the best horses up against each other. Car parking was an issue last year and this year we’ll effectively park 7,000 cars on hard standing, and I think the relaxation of alcohol movement policies, to enable people to have a beer and watch the racing, will be really transformational for different parts of the crowd.”

Beer on the lawns and within sight of the running rail may also infuriate more traditional racegoers, who simply want to focus on the horses. But a Cheltenham festival crowd is a demographic hotchpotch of young and old, townies and country folk, drinkers and gamblers, and also fans who see the horses and jockeys, racing and jumping at speed in one of the finest natural amphitheatres in all of sport, as the only drug they need.

“The festival is the Olympics of National Hunt racing and it comes with a huge element of responsibility which we have to get right,” Lavender says. “We know what the barriers are to attendance and our strategy is to attack all of those things.

“If numbers are slightly down, it allows you to deliver a better experience, so the measure of success this year is delivering brilliant experiences for people who come to the festival. If you get that bit right, people’s enthusiasm and love for the festival will grow over time.”

Having overseen Ashes Tests and Cricket World Cup finals during his time at Lord’s, Lavender is now responsible for another great British sporting institution. But he can also draw on his army experience to put the pressure of the task at hand into context. “It doesn’t feel quite as terrifying,” he says, “as the first time you jump out of a plane.”