Finishing Post

For the majority of the project, my focus was on making the blog the product - on making the website work well, showcase the images and contain written content explaining and putting the drawings into context. I did this by creating a gallery page which I linked as the start page. I also created a Race Day Diary page which just had the blog posts about the racing days as opposed to development work and research. The main blog page was then intended to be read by tutors.

Towards the end of the project I realised I wanted a physical object other than my prints and postcards. I had several ideas including a newspaper style publication which I thought I might screen print and do as two-sided fold-out posters, each focussing on a different day of racing. My images being differently produced would have presented a challenge to screen-printing however with the colour separation, and I was also wary of time constraints. In the end I decided to put together a book in Indesign. 

The book structure came together quite easily. I had lots of drawings to look through (over 160 drawn at the racecourse) so had to select what I felt were the best drawings and those that contributed different things - subject matter and drawing technique being the main criteria. Rather than take a chronological approach I decided to focus each page or series of pages on a specific topic - the finish of a race, betting, ladies, etc. This gave a good flow and variety of drawings throughout the book; it also avoided repeating similar drawings. There are lots of drawings I would have liked to put in but I think the final selection is a good one. 

I also felt some text was needed to put the drawings in context, so had to look back through the writing I had done through the year and adapt this for the book. I wrote a fairly long foreword explaining the project and some of the drawing considerations. I also came up with some headings to introduce each section.

Below is a selection of spreads from the book in it's current draft. N.B. the black section of the top is for marking out the paper size!

The April Meeting 16th April 2014

I didn't get a lot done at the April meeting on Wednesday 16th April - one drawing  mainly because it was sunny and I decided to have a few bets and a drink for a change. It was magnificently sunny and quite warm on the Wednesday, and there seemed to be an unusual amount of families with young children running around everywhere on the lawn. In other words, about as different from the Festival a month earlier as possible. They were also in the process of pulling down some of the old members' stand in preparation for development which will take place over the summer. I drew the view from my position seated on the grass in front of the stand - by Thursday it had mostly been demolished.

Cotswold Life

During the Festival, I sent the editors at Cotswold Life the links to this blog where I posted the drawings and captions for each day at the Festival. They posted them on the front page of their website (by the time you look, they likely will have been replaced). They gave the galleries the title: 'The Cheltenham Festival in art.'

This was great exposure and helped me to get into the Festival itself. The web pages featured a 'photo gallery' of my drawings with edited captions taken from my writing and an article about each day 'quoting' me from the text I had written. I took a few screen grabs of the website in case the pages are no longer up when it comes to marking:

Champion Day

Ladies Day

St Patrick's Day

Gold Cup Day

The Festival - Gold Cup Day - Friday 14th March 2014

Friday is Gold Cup Day at the Cheltenham Festival, hosting the most prestigious race in the jump racing calendar, the 3 mile 2 furlongs Cheltenham Gold Cup. As such, it's the busiest day of the Festival by far, making the previous crowds seem easy in comparison. Over 70,000 people were packed into the course on Friday, which made it difficult for me to find anywhere with enough space to draw. I managed to get a view of the parade ring before the second race of the day, the Vincent O'Brien County Handicap Hurdle. 

The day turned out to be an unlucky one for several high-profile jockeys - except for Davy Russell, who had three wins including the Gold Cup. First to go was Festival favourite Ruby Walsh, who suffered a broken arm in a fall in the first race. Next it was Daryl Jacob's turn. Having won the second race - his first of the Festival - his luck turned immediately for the worse when his horse, evidently spooked by something, careered at pace into railings in front of the Best Mate enclosure before the start of the third race. I drew the unfortunate Jacob as he was being tended to by medics. His horse, Lac Fontana, is being led away in the foreground.

The ensuing delay lasted 10-15 minutes as Jacob was stretchered into an ambulance. Later, it emerged that he had broken his knee, leg and elbow. Meanwhile, the rest of the riders circled uneasily on their horses, waiting for the course to be cleared.

The third race won by Very Wood, it was time for the biggest race of the Festival - the Gold Cup. The race had been billed as a return clash between the two heavyweight trainers, Nicky Henderson with last-years winner Bob's Worth and his rival Paul Nichols with King George winner Silviniaco Conti. With nerves still jangling after the previous injuries, the race had to be restarted twice before they finally got away. I was drawing up in the stands above the Tattersalls betting ring as this was going on and was able to capture the close finish as three or four horses crossed the line neck-and-neck. 

In the end, after a lengthy stewards enquiry, Lord Windermere, ridden by Davy Russell, was proclaimed winner. I caught Russell in a quick sketch as he pumped his fist in celebration parading past the crowd, few of whom must have backed him as he set off at 20-1. 

The Gold Cup over and done, but there was more incident still to come. I crossed the track and drew the Grandstand as the evening sun dipped below the roof, hoping to catch the horses running up past me to the finish in the last race of the day. What actually happened was that A.P. McCoy was unseated about five metres in front of me and the spectators I was with, dumped on the floor and trampled badly. As McCoy writhed in pain, the area was quickly sealed off by stewards. About five minutes later, the champion jockey pulled himself up and limped away across the grass, assisted by medics.

I emerged feeling somewhat privileged not to be a jockey. I didn't feel much like drawing after that, but here is a picture of some bookmakers packing up their pitches at the end of this year's Festival.

The Festival - St Patrick's Thursday - 13th March 2014

Officially, it's not St Patrick's Day until Monday 17th, but it's become a tradition at Cheltenham since the Festival became a four-day event to have a day named after the Irish patron saint. The card is always full of Irish horses, jockeys and trainers, and there's no shortage of Irish in the crowd either. Guinness is a prominent sponsor of the Festival and the Guinness Village is something like the day's official watering hole. Even in the morning, it's packed: 

There were Guinness St Pat's hats everywhere you looked, although most of the people wearing them weren't actually Irish. I drew these characters on separate pages and pieced this image together.

Inside the Guinness Village, I fought my way through the throng and rested on the railings of the bandstand to draw these racegoers watching the band in between races. The Guinness was in full flow but not all of the punters were doing well, as evidenced by the man covering his face with his hand.

Barry Geraghty is interviewed on his way back to the winner's enclosure after winning the Ladbrokes World Hurdle on More Of That. I drew the Guinness stand in the background before waiting for Geraghty to pass to sketch the horse and rider.

A view down the rails between two sets of bookmakers' pitches before the running of the final race of the day, the charity race. 

After the races there was a bloodstock sale held in the main parade ring. Something like £1.6 million was allegedly spent on horses - not a penny of which was spent by champion jockey A.P. McCoy, who I drew as he chatted quietly on the periphery of the main crowd. A.P. had a bad fall on Wednesday evening but, as is his style, had regrouped to win the first race on St Patrick's Thursday aboard Taquin Du Seuil.

The Festival - Ladies Day - Wednesday 12th March

Day two is Ladies Day at the Cheltenham Festival, something like National Hunt Racing's answer to Royal Ascot. There's a distinct lack of the Ascot pomp and ceremony to proceedings, however, and once racing is underway, it's the usual anarchic Cheltenham going, albeit with a splash more colour. Here the punters begin to gather near the fences with Cleeve Hill in the background as the first race of the day begins. 

Somehow, the feathers and hats and colourful coats only seem to emphasise the fact that the majority of men in the crowd are wearing either black or beige, or both at once. 

It's business as usual for Channel 4's Tanya Stevenson, preparing to summarise shifts in the betting before the day's feature race, the 2m Queen Mother Champion Chase. Except of course, in that this year she's sans John McCririck, her former co-presenter who used to refer to her as 'the Female'. 

The crowds are dispersing after the fifth race of the day. The members grandstand is in the background, assorted outfits in the foreground. 

At the end of the day the racegoers in the bars are split roughly between tea and champagne, and it's not hard to tell who's drinking which. 

In the 'Fashion Zone', new to this year's Festival, there have been catwalk models and displays all day. Here the Ronnie Scott's All Stars band, led by pianist James Pearson, play a set for racegoers who can't quite bring themselves to leave the racecourse just yet. 

The Festival - Champion Day - Tuesday 11th March

The time has come - it's the Cheltenham Festival 2014! I was there bright and early, well, at least in time not to miss anything significant. The first thing I noticed were the massive crowds and the fact that my parking badge is now useless so I had to pay £6 to park at the Pump Room. When I got to the racecourse I realised that the drawing was going to be a bit different from the quieter race meetings so far this season: 

Punters queue to enter the Centaur as the doors open at 10.30am and the Cheltenham Festival 2014 is underway! From the top to the bottom of the town the streets are full of racegoers 'preparing themselves' for the week ahead. This time last year, there was threat of snow on Champion Day, but today the sun is out and the air is clear, though cold. 

Punters observe the first horses to come out into the Parade Ring for the Sky Bet Supreme Novice's Hurdle, won by Vautour, trained by Willie Mullins and ridden by Ruby Walsh, frequent winners at the Festival. 

Photographers congregate around trainer David Pipe and connections, after Western Warhorse's victory in the Racing Post Arkle Challenge Trophy. The Festival is one of the sporting media's biggest events of the year. My friend Gavin James in in there at the front, with the flash. 

A groom from Nicky Henderson's yard leads Ma Filleule around the Parade Ring before the third race.  

Ma Filleule came in second having led until the third-last fence; here she is being dusted off after the race and being observed by pleased connections. 

Not a part of the racecourse is inactive during Festival race-days, even during a race. Here punters watch the racing from a Pizza stand. 

A view of the Parade Ring and Grandstand during the pre-parade for the Champion Hurdle, the most important race of the day. This year's  renewal is one of the most anticipated in recent memory as several fancied pretenders line-up against Hurricane Fly, winner of the race twice previously. 

Claire Balding and Mick Fitzgerald perform interviews to camera after the Champion Hurdle, won narrowly by Jezki ahead of champion jockey A.P.McCoy's ride My Tent Or Yours. 

Racegoers exchange betting -  or possibly fashion - tips before the fifth race. The course was so crowded that I found it harder to concentrate on individual racegoers than at previous meetings. 

The run up the hill into the fading sunlight at the finish of the seventh and final race of the day. I did this drawing and the other two large drawings on a watercolour block which is far better than sketchbook work although it is just under A3 and also a pain to remove and store the drawings after they are finished as they need to be cut away from the tape. 

Tomorrow is Ladies Day - now it's time for some well-earned tea!