Thursday 13 March 2014

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. 




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