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| Photo: Telegraph.co.uk |
Cheltenham Gold Cup Festival: Are we going to the races...or going to the dogs?
Last year’s Gold Cup Festival broke attendance records, with
235,125 race-goers descending on our town over the four days. Good fun I’m sure
was had by all who attended and many in the town (mainly the bars of course)
were all the more prosperous for their visit.
However, for this Cheltenham resident, all the hordes
brought with them was misery and mess, evidently leaving their manners behind
wherever they had come from. It’s this
memory that made me look forward to Gold Cup 2014 about as much as being hit by
a bus, and saw me making plans to escape for the duration of the week that
Cheltenham actually goes to the dogs rather than the races.
Yet my best laid plans didn’t quite come off, so I’ve found
myself here, staying put at home near the train station, the first and last
stop (or more likely pint) for thousands of race-goers.
But I’ve been pleasantly surprised. Cheltenham race-goers
have improved their public relations, in the most literal sense.
Last year we saw many pavement pizzas, quite a few fights
and a ridiculous amount of aggressive behaviour when trying to stop
men-old-enough-to-know-better from doing unmentionables on our street and
neighbours’ doorsteps.
This year, people have been really friendly, even apologetic
for crowding the top of our road where there’s a rather popular race-day pub. And
this time, when my partner was stopped on his way home from work to be asked
directions to a particular watering hole, rather than being sworn at like last
year, he was invited for a pint of the black stuff.
It seems to me that 2014’s race-goers have been of a much
happier and friendlier disposition. Even #Cheltenham tweeters have been on good
form.
So my first hand
experience of this annual event has been much improved and made me think twice
about reaching for next year’s holiday forms already in a panic.
Cheltenham Gold Cup 2014 should be proud; its visitors have
earned it some good PR just through good old human interaction.
Rachel Meagher
Account Director
