Friday, February 17, 2017 Xpat 17
A sober day at the races by Jack Troughton
The flagship Cheltenham Festival was blighted last year by scenes of men urinating and women flashing from a hospitality box. This year, racegoers will be limited to buying four alcoholic drinks at a time as racing chiefs attempt to cut down drunken and rowdy behaviour. And every public bar will have a water point and free bottles of water will be handed out at the end of the day’s action. Further, complimentary bars at the many corporate hospitality boxes will be shut earlier at the March meeting. Ian Renton, chief executive of the four-day festival, said: “Our message is enjoy yourself and have a great day out at the races but don’t come here purely to drink. “It’s not want we want, it’s not the sort of publicity we want for the racecourse. We want to ensure all racegoers can enjoy the races unhindered by people drinking irresponsibly. “We are reinforcing our standard procedures, increasing the training of staff and the briefing of managers, and ensured that every member of bar staff has watched a video on responsible drinking.” The same limit will be enforced at key events at the club’s other courses, which include 14 of Britain’s best-known tracks, among them Aintree, the home of the Grand National, and Epsom, which stages the Derby. Cheltenham will also stop “making a virtue” in pre-festival publicity of the amount of drink consumed. The 2015 publicity said that 265,000 pints of Guinness, 120,000 bottles of wine and 20,000 bottles of champagne were drunk.