EXCLUSIVE: Racing icon Ruby Walsh popped by the Daily Star offices to guest edit Saturday’s paper – and gave us his thoughts on why this year’s Cheltenham Festival is a surefire bet to be the best yet
The Cheltenham Festival is odds on to save Britain from its current gloom, according to racing legend Ruby Walsh. Wonder jockey Ruby, who rode nearly 2,800 winners in a glittering career, said this year’s festival is set to be the best ever thanks to cut price Guinness, the return of Ladies’ Day and a host of too-close-to-call big races.
Ruby, 46, said the historic four-day saddle shindig is horseracing’s ‘Premier League’ and needs to flourish to help keep Britain running.
Instead of clobbering the sport of kings with betting taxes he urged the Government to safeguard it as it provides thousands of jobs in rural areas which would have little hope without input from the nation’s 59 racecourses.
Ruby dropped by Daily Star’s London office with the famous Cheltenham Gold Cup trophy ahead of this year’s festival which starts on March 10…and ended up running the show.
He guest edited your favourite newspaper and took the chance to launch an impassioned plea to protect the future of the festival and a sport that has produced so many special memories for millions. Both have taken a whipping from Chancellor Rachel Reeves.
Bookmaker Entain has scrapped its 52-year sponsorship of The Coral Cup – traditionally run on the second day of the four-day event – due to the ‘significant increase’ in gambling taxes announced by the Chancellor in her November Budget.
Though duty on horseracing bets was frozen thanks to a Daily Star campaign and Britain’s first strike by owners, trainers and jockeys, Reeves still battered bookies.
She ramped up taxes on online casinos from 21% to 40% and general betting duty on other sports from 15% to 25% from April – which had a knock-on impact on bookmakers’ investment in horseracing.
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy is plotting another cash grab by raising licence fees bookies pay to their Gambling Commission regulator by up to 30%.
Horseracing chiefs have warned the moves will cost jobs and drive folk to bet on the black market where there are no safeguards against problem gambling.
Instead of hammering racing Ruby said it should be protected as its importance to the nation was ‘massive’. “It’s rural employment. It’s huge,” he said. “When you have rural populations you have to have rural employment. Racing is a huge rural employer. People do live in the country too. I think it is a brilliant way of creating employment in rural areas.
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“I know there are a couple of tracks in London but there are lots of racecourses that are in rural parts of the UK as well as Ireland and they generate a spin-off economy in the area that they are in. Look at Cheltenham. The spin-off from the Cheltenham festival in Gloucester and the surrounding area is huge.”
Ruby backed Cheltenham to win its tussle with the Treasury thanks to one of the biggest revamps in its 166-year history with a host of changes designed to make it more fun – and cheaper.
Ladies’ Day is back on Wednesday March 11 after being shelved seven years ago in favour of simply numbering the four race days.
Bosses expect the move to trigger an invasion of female fans with £10,000 in prizes on offer to the most stylish race-goer.
Cheltenham chiefs have also cut the daily capacity by 2,500 to 66,000 to give the crowd a more comfortable experience watching from less-packed stands with smaller queues for food and drink.
Multi day discount tickets have been available to reduce entrance fees. And the cost of a pint of Guinness will be go down from £7.80 to £7.50 – a price last seen there in 2022.
Ruby, who piloted a record 59 Cheltenham winners and lifted the Gold Cup twice in his 24-year career, is convinced the moves will make it a sure fire winner for all.
“I’m very impressed with the changes,” he told us. I think less is always more so bringing down the capacity to me is a no-brainer. There has to be a customer experience. People have to walk out thinking, ‘I want to go there again’.
“Ladies’ Day? I’m all in a dither. I have no idea what hat I’m going to wear. I am a man with a girl’s name so I better make an effort. It will create interest in a different sense. Drink prices? Look, you drink 18 pints, you get one free!”
But he warned it may be tough to pick a winner because so many races this year were ‘so competitive’.
“I think it’s going to be really tricky for punters,” he said. “I’m not sure which horses win. The Gold Cup is a belter. You’re not hanging your hat on anything, well I’m not anyway.”
The Cheltenham Festival takes place from Tuesday 10th – Friday 13th March. Tickets to all four days are still available here.