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Martin Pipe Day To
Kick-start New Jump Season At Cheltenham

cheltenham festival / 2007 news /

Martin Pipe Launches Record Season At Cheltenham
29/08/06

Martin Pipe enjoying his retirement
© www.martinpipe.com

Cheltenham will be offering a record £5 million in prize money, including £3 million at The Festival, during the new 2006/07 season. This represents an increase of 10% on last season's total. Full details of the race programme will be announced at a later date.

Ticket sales open this Friday, September 1. Advance booking admission prices remain unchanged from last season except for a £2 increase in Club on Paddy Power Gold Cup Day (Saturday, November 11) to £27, and all three enclosures on totesport Cheltenham Gold Cup Day(Friday, March 16).

A new Thursday/Friday ticket will be available for The Festival, providing admission for both days at the same price as this year - a saving of up to £10 on Friday's normal price.

Crowd capacity will be limited to 65,000 on totesport Gold Cup day, a reduction of 2,000 on this year's attendance. The 55,000 capacity remains for the first three days of The Festival.

The season opens on Tuesday, October 24, with Martin Pipe Day, when Cheltenham will honour Jump Racing's most successful trainer. Each race will be named to reflect the trainer's extraordinary achievement of sending out 4,182 winners, including 34 at The Festival.

Cheltenham's Managing Director, Edward Gillespie commented "The start of our new season is just eight weeks away and we are delighted to be able to announce that prize money will increase by 10% and admission prices will largely remain unaltered.

"This has been made possible by the success of the four day Festival format and the continued growth of other fixtures. We shall shortly be announcing a race programme that we are confident will stimulate further interest in the already buoyant market for National Hunt horses."