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A day in a private box with 4-course dining and a dedicated host.
The Long Run Box takes its name from one of Cheltenham's most celebrated modern champions, a French-bred gelding who stormed to Gold Cup glory in 2011. But the story of the racecourse itself stretches back nearly two centuries, rooted in the Cotswold hills and the particular madness of National Hunt racing. Cheltenham has always been the place where jump racing matters most; the Festival each March is the sport's annual reckoning, and the Gold Cup its ultimate prize.
Cheltenham is the Olympics of our sport. It's where every horseman wants to be in March.
Cheltenham was already fashionable; the races simply gave its visitors an excuse to stay longer.
The first recorded flat races at Cheltenham took place on Nottingham Hill, near the top of Cleeve Hill. The spa town was already fashionable, and racing gave its visitors another reason to linger. Within a few years, meetings moved to Prestbury Park, the site the racecourse still occupies today.
Cheltenham's hills were never decoration; they were the filter.
The National Hunt Festival was established at Cheltenham in 1902, consolidating the best steeplechasing and hurdle races into a single meeting. The course's natural undulations and testing terrain made it the ideal proving ground for jump horses. It was a deliberate choice: Cheltenham's geography sorts the genuine from the merely fast.
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A held block of seats with a clear view of the day.
Dining across the day or evening.
Getting around
Public transport runs to the venue on the day. Your event manager sends the route and nearest station with the booking confirmation.
Black cabs and ride-share apps are available across the local area. Drop-offs on the day depend on road closures; the booking confirmation flags the nearest set-down point.
Chauffeured cars or coaches for larger parties can be arranged through your event manager. Pricing is case-by-case and varies with party size.
To ride your father's horse and win the Gold Cup, there is nothing that can compare to that feeling.
From modest prize money to the most coveted prize in jump racing; Red Splash started something rather significant on 12 March 1924.
The inaugural Cheltenham Gold Cup took place on 12 March 1924, run over three miles and about two furlongs. Red Splash, ridden by Dick Rees, won the first running. The race carried modest prize money at the time, but it would grow to become the most prestigious steeplechase in the calendar, the race every jump trainer dreams of winning.
Handicappers had to invent a separate set of weights just for him; that tells you everything.
Arkle won the first of three consecutive Cheltenham Gold Cups in 1964, beating the reigning champion Mill House by five lengths. Trained by Tom Dreaper and ridden by Pat Taaffe, Arkle became the standard against which every steeplechaser since has been measured. His dominance was so complete that handicappers eventually created separate weights for races depending on whether he was entered.
The only horse to win both the Champion Hurdle and the Gold Cup, with the roar from the stands as she passed Wayward Lad still one of Cheltenham's defining sounds.
Dawn Run won the Champion Hurdle in 1984 and then the Gold Cup in 1986, becoming the only horse ever to win both races. Her Gold Cup victory, rallying from what looked a hopeless position on the hill, produced one of the most famous finishes in Festival history. The roar from the stands as she passed Wayward Lad and Forgive'N Forget remains one of Cheltenham's defining sounds.
A fourth day, and suddenly 200,000 pilgrims had even more reason to stay.
After over a century as a three-day meeting, the Cheltenham Festival expanded to four days in 2005. The additional day allowed for more races and, crucially, more hospitality. Attendance surged past 200,000 across the week. The expansion reflected both the Festival's commercial growth and the insatiable appetite of racegoers who had long treated the meeting as an annual pilgrimage.
An amateur jockey, riding his father's horse, beat two champions to claim racing's greatest prize.
Long Run, a French-bred gelding trained by Nicky Henderson and owned by Robert Waley-Cohen, won the 2011 Cheltenham Gold Cup at the age of six. Ridden by Sam Waley-Cohen, the owner's son, he beat the defending champion Denman and the great Kauto Star into second and third. It was a remarkable family affair: an amateur jockey riding his father's horse to victory in the sport's biggest race. Long Run had already won the King George VI Chase at Kempton the previous December, and his Gold Cup triumph cemented his place among the finest chasers of his generation. The hospitality box at Cheltenham that bears his name commemorates that unforgettable afternoon.
A £45 million overhaul in 2015 turned Cheltenham's grandstand into a theatre of private boxes and Cotswold views.
The £45 million redevelopment of the Princess Royal Stand was completed in 2015, adding modern hospitality facilities and private boxes to the racecourse. The investment reflected the growing importance of corporate hospitality to the Festival's commercial model. Private boxes like the Long Run Box offer guests views across the course and the Cotswold escarpment, with the racing unfolding directly below.
Quarter of a million racegoers, a Gold Cup worth over £625,000, and still the private boxes sell out first.
The Cheltenham Festival remains the pinnacle of the National Hunt season, with attendance regularly exceeding 250,000 across the four days. The Gold Cup, now sponsored by Boodles, carries prize money of over £625,000. Private hospitality boxes like the Long Run Box are among the most sought-after corporate experiences in British sport, offering an intimate vantage point for the week's drama.
