Editing Cheltenham (section)

===Cheltenham Festival===
{{main|Cheltenham Festival}}
Cheltenham Festival is a significant [[National Hunt racing]] meeting,<ref>{{cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sport/66009.stm |title=Going is good for Cheltenham |work=[[BBC Sport]] |date=17 March 1998 |access-date=10 March 2009}}</ref> and has race prize money second only to the [[Grand National]]. It is an event where many of the best British and Irish trained horses race against each other, the extent of which is relatively rare during the rest of the season.

The festival takes place annually in March at [[Cheltenham Racecourse]]. The meeting is often very popular with Irish visitors,<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/breaking-news/sport/horse-racing/cheltenham-festival-gets-underway-this-afternoon-14219806.html |title=Cheltenham festival gets underway this afternoon |work=[[The Belfast Telegraph]] |date=10 March 2009 |access-date=10 March 2009}}</ref> mostly because of that nation's affinity with horse racing, but also because it usually coincides with [[St. Patrick's Day]], a national holiday in celebration of the [[patron saint]] of [[Ireland]].

Large amounts of money are bet during festival week, with hundreds of millions of [[pound Sterling|pounds]] being gambled over the four days.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.gloucestershireecho.co.uk/Cheltenham-Festival-2015-numbers-150million-bets/story-26172465-detail/story.html|title=Cheltenham Festival 2015 in numbers: £150million in bets, 10,745 bottles of champagne and 250 chefs|work=Gloucestershire Echo|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150705013128/http://www.gloucestershireecho.co.uk/Cheltenham-Festival-2015-numbers-150million-bets/story-26172465-detail/story.html|archive-date=5 July 2015}}</ref> Cheltenham is often noted for its atmosphere, most notably the "Cheltenham roar", which refers to the enormous amount of noise that the crowd generates as the starter raises the tape for the first race of the festival.