Which is most popular, the Cheltenham Festival, the Grand National or Royal Ascot?

Along with the Derby Festival at Epsom Downs, the Cheltenham Festival, Grand National Festival and Royal Ascot are the major horse racing festivals staged in Britain. As such, to anyone with even a passing interest in the ‘Sport of Kings’, none of them requires much in the way of introduction.

Since 2005, the Cheltenham Festival has been been a four-day affair, with the ‘Blue Riband’ event, the Cheltenham Gold Cup, run on the final day. In 2024, attendances on the first three days were down compared to 2023, but Gold Cup Day sold out, taking the total attendance to one short of 230,000. The average domestic terrestrial audience for the week was 953,000, up from 941,000 in 2023.

Likewise, since 2002, Royal Ascot has consisted of five days, rather than the previous four, and in 2024 attracted a total of 273, 526 spectators, compared with 266,147 in 2023. The Royal Meeting attracted a peak television audience of over one million on the first three days and lesser figures on the final two days were thought to be down to direct competition with the UEFA European Football Championship.

By contrast, the Grand National Festival at Aintree is a three-day meeting with the feature event, the Grand National, run on the Saturday. In 2024, the total attendance over the three days was 120,259, with the peak attendance of 55,822 coming, predictably, on Grand National Day. The moving forward of the ‘off’ time, to 16:00 from 17:15, was blamed for a fall in the domestic terrestrial television, from 7.5 million to 6.1 million, but it is worth remembering that, as the most famous steeplechase in the world, the Grand National is watched, globally, by over half a billion people.