Cheltenham Racecourse Cheltenham Racecourse Cheltenham Racecourse is a racecourse for horse racing events, located at Prestbury Park, near Cheltenham in Gloucestershire. Its most prestigious meeting is the Cheltenham Festival, held in March, which features several Grade I races including the Cheltenham Gold Cup, Champion Hurdle, Queen Mother Champion Chase and the Stayers' Hurdle. The racecourse has a scenic location in a natural amphitheatre just below the escarpment of the Cotswold Hills, at Cleeve Hill, with a capacity of 67,500 spectators. The racecourse also has its own steam railway station (of the same name), although this no longer connects to the national rail
Horse racing in Great Britain possession, published in York in 1748, the result is recorded of a race run in September 1709 on Clifton and Rawcliffe Ings, near York, for a gold cup of £50. In 1740, Parliament introduced an act "to restrain and to prevent the excessive increase in horse racing"; this was largely ignored and in the 1750 the Jockey Club was formed to create and apply the Rules of Racing. However, until the 1760s, individual horses seldom ran more than five or six times, due to the scarcity of prizes on offer, but this began to change with major race meetings expanding