Cheltenham Parks Lido is the home of Cheltenham Swimming and Water Polo Club. Cheltenham Festival is a significant National Hunt racing meeting, and has race prize money second only to the Grand National. It is an event where many of the best British and Irish trained horses race against each other, the extent of which is relatively rare during the rest of the season. The festival takes place annually in March at Cheltenham Racecourse. The meeting is often very popular with Irish visitors, mostly because of that nation's affinity with horse racing, but also because it usually coincides with St. Patrick's
Horse racing Cup, Barbé Cup, Maiden Cup and the Duke of York Cup. Most of the horses are imported from South Africa but some are also acquired from Australia, the United Kingdom and France. Horse racing is a popular sport in South Africa that can be traced back to 1797. The first recorded race club meeting took place five years later in 1802. The national horse racing body is known as the National Horseracing Authority and was founded in 1882. The premier event, which attracts 50,000 people to Durban, is the Durban July Handicap, which has been run since 1897 at Greyville