Cheltenham effect helps boost bumper January crowd figures as festival tickets selling fast

Two bumper days at Cheltenham helped British racing start the year with the highest average attendance for jump meetings in January since 2016, and the continued draw of Britain's premier jumps track was underlined by reports that ticket sales for March's Cheltenham Festival are buoyant.

The course's New Year's Day meeting attracted 38,374 people, which was 10,000 more than in recent years, while 21,024 were at Festival Trials day on January 28. Those big turnouts played a big part in boosting the average attendance at jump meetings in January to 2,888, which has been bettered only by 2016 (3,624) since 2009.

That healthy figure was achieved despite the abandonment of the traditionally well attended Clarence House Chase card at Ascot and Haydock's Peter Marsh Chase meeting.