Our man at the track reflects on the action from the second day of Cheltenham’s Showcase Meeting.
Cheltenham.
The one topic racing fans will read more about over the next five months than any other.
Just look at the reaction to a nugget tentatively dropped onto the Racing Post’s plate earlier this week that the Festival one day might be pushed from Tuesday to Friday to Wednesday to Saturday.
Some hate it, some love it, the odd few are indifferent. But the media, including pages on our website, has been full of the debate. Cheltenham sells. It’s our biggest driver of traffic. If it could just drive more ticket sales for the Wednesday in March, we’d be able to concentrate on the horses a little more.
A 30p drop in the price of a pint of Guinness made the pre-season headlines. Changes, tweaks, anything to try and turn the tanker around.
And you can’t help but feel sorry for those tasked with doing just that. If there was a magic button to be pressed, Guy Lavender and the team would have reached for it months ago.
