Cheltenham set for 30,000-strong New Year's Day crowd on Saturday

One of Cheltenham’s biggest crowds outside the festival is expected on New Year’s Day with track supremo Ian Renton looking forward to racegoers enjoying ‘a day out in the open’ at a meeting without severe lockdown restrictions in place.

Five days after Chepstow’s Welsh National took place behind closed doors, Cheltenham, 40 miles away but on the other side of the border in England, is being readied for an attendance of 30,000.

In contrast to Wales, and Scotland, where Musselburgh’s traditional New Year’s Day meeting will be without paying spectators, only limited Covid-19 restrictions currently exist in England.

Those heading to Cheltenham will have to produce a vaccine pass or proof of a negative lateral flow test, but it is set to be business as usual otherwise – much to the relief of Renton.

He said on Thursday: "Typically we'd have a crowd in the region of 30,000 and I think it's likely to be that on New Year's Day given how the Sunday falls and then there's a bank holiday after that as well.

"It's a really important fixture and I think a lot of people like to come to Cheltenham on New Year's Day as it's a slightly different crowd to many of our meetings. Many might come for their one day a year and it's a lovely family day out; it's great to have the meeting with people attending.

"We've seen the advance bookings have been good and people are wanting to have a day out, and a day out at the races is a day out in the open."

Renton, regional director for Cheltenham and the south west at The Jockey Club, added: "We have the Covid-19 certification in place, which will result in longer arrival times, so we recommend people arrive in good time.

"It's lovely to see the number of declarations [80] we've got and the weather should be onside for us as well."

The track would be agile to any changes moving forward and Renton went on: "As in all these things, we'll await government advice. It's nice to have a degree of certainty going forward, but we have to be flexible and change according to any requirements."

Weather at Cheltenham is forecast to be dry on Friday and SaturdayCredit: Edward Whitaker

'It should be proper winter ground'

The seven-race card, four of which will be screened live on ITV's main channel, is due to take place on ground described as soft, good to soft in places.

"We had 21mm between Christmas Eve and yesterday and there's a chance of some light rain today, but nothing too significant in volume, maybe 1mm or 2mm," clerk of the course Jon Pullin said on Thursday.

"We're then pretty much dry thereafter, so I don't really anticipate much change from here.

"We didn't have any rain between our last meeting on December 11 and Christmas Eve, so that 21mm we had was welcome and it should be proper winter ground."

Read more:

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