TUESDAY
As almost everyone in racing media descended on Cheltenham for the start of the Festival, gossip was rife to the effect that the BBC had given up the fight with Channel 4 over the rights to terrestrial coverage of the sport. Channel 4's increased offer, reportedly double what the BBC formerly paid, was said to have carried them past the post. No formal announcement was made during the Festival, though it cannot be far away. Bookmakers were said to be quaking over the idea that the week's four big races would be won once more by the previous year's winners, triggering a massive payout to unimaginative punters. Those fears were allayed by race four, when Hurricane Fly could manage only third in the Champion Hurdle. There were suggestions that his jockey, Ruby Walsh, rode with less than his usual tactical nous.
WEDNESDAY
The high point of an amazing week for Nicky Henderson who trained four winners on the card, a feat never before achieved in a single day at the Festival. The first of those took him past Fulke Walwyn's old record of 40 career wins at the meeting and Henderson was not finished, as his final total for the week of seven was also unprecedented. Among his winners was Finian's Rainbow, who may have been a fortunate winner of the Champion Chase, as Sizing Europe appeared to lose much more momentum when the pair were directed around the side of the final fence. Wishfull Thinking had fallen there on the first circuit, rolling into a crowd of photographers, one of whom was taken to hospital with a split lip. .
THURSDAY
The actor James Nesbitt who has spent much of the last year in New Zealand filming The Hobbit, saw his Riverside Theatre win the Ryanair Chase and then described a 21-year love affair with the Festival, which started with him and a few friends "in the cheap seats" in the Arkle Bar. He praised racing for bringing together tens of thousands of people from all walks of life together and told the sport to stop "being so hard on itself". It later emerged that Riverside Theatre had been the clinching leg of a five-horse accumulator bet placed by Conor Murphy, a Henderson employee and now a millionaire. His £50 bet was placed before Christmas and included horses priced at up to 20-1.
FRIDAY
Gold Cup day attendance was 70,458, a record for a single day at the Festival, taking the total for the week to 236,730, another record. The switch to a four-day meeting some years ago did not meet with everyone's approval, but it clearly has not undermined enthusiasm for the event and the extra money being made by the racecourse and the town must surely be prompting thoughts of a fifth day or at least moving the Festival to end on a Saturday. A larger crowd will be possible when planned renovations take place but they will not start for at least two years. Kauto Star made what was surely the last of his seven Festival appearances, being pulled up in the Gold Cup after less than a circuit. Synchronised won the big race, while Brindisi Breeze landed the Albert Bartlett to become the first Scottish winner at the Festival in a decade.