planning your visit | membership
MEET A MEMBER H orses play a huge part in Alice Thurtle’s life. She grew up around point-to-pointing, thanks to family involvement in the Cheltenham member ALICE THURTLE tells us how the course gave her a great birthday present and why The Festival is better than Christmas
sport, studied Equine Science and Thoroughbred Management at university and is now part of the communications team at the Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association in Newmarket. She’s also a huge Cheltenham fan, becoming a member of what was then the 18-24 Membership scheme as a student at Oxford Brookes University. “Being close to Cheltenham, it allowed me to attend almost every meeting at the course so it made perfect sense for me and my friends,” she says. Alice has just celebrated her 25th birthday so was delighted when in June 2019 Cheltenham extended the 18-24 membership to 28. “I will definitely be renewing my membership,” she says. “It’s a really great idea that helps to make the races much more affordable and gets Now she lives further away, heading to Cheltenham is not quite so easy but The November Meeting, International Meeting and The Festival are all fixtures in her diary. She says: “I have attended every day of the Festival since I first took out my membership and absolutely love it. I often describe it as Christmas, but 10 times better! “The atmosphere and racing is amazing and cannot be compared to any other race meeting. If I had to pick a favourite day, it would probably be the Tuesday with all the excitement for the week ahead, the Roar and the brilliant racing. I really enjoy The November Meeting too, it is always such great people not only to The Festival ™ presented by Magners, but to the course’s other meetings.”
racing and falls on my mum’s birthday so we try and make it an annual trip.” If she’s not heading to Cheltenham with family, she’ll probably be going with university friends as it’s the perfect place to relax and catch up. A couple of years ago, Alice introduced some non-racing friends to The Festival: now they go every year too. Away from work and the races – she enjoys the Flat meetings at Newmarket, though Jump racing is her favourite – Alice is involved with her family’s own racehorses in training, which they bred from their point-to-point mares. “It would be a dream come true to have one of them run at The Festival,” she says. “I’m usually helping out with the mares and youngstock and have also started pinhooking a few Flat foals and prepping them for the sales, which I
would love to expand in the future.” Her own favourite horses include Annie Power – Alice so admires her, she named one of the family foals after her – and the “tough and talented” Tiger Roll. As for jockeys, she’s a big fan of Ruby Walsh: “I think Cheltenham will be very different next year with no one chanting ‘Ruby, Ruby, Ruby’!” And it’s a horse at the heart of her favourite Cheltenham memory: “It must be when Sprinter Sacre won his second Champion Chase. I still get goosebumps watching it back!”
For more information about Membership , please call the
team on 01242 537 662 or visit cheltenham.co.uk for details.
106 Kalendar
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