Cheltenham Racecourse is a racecourse for horse racing events, located at Prestbury Park, near Cheltenham in Gloucestershire. Its most prestigious meeting is the Cheltenham Festival, held in March, which features several Grade I races including the Cheltenham Gold Cup, Champion Hurdle, Queen Mother Champion Chase and the Stayers' Hurdle.
The racecourse has a scenic location in a natural amphitheatre just below the escarpment of the Cotswold Hills, at Cleeve Hill, with a capacity of 67,500 spectators. The racecourse also has its own steam railway station although this no longer connects to the national rail network but has since rather been the current southern terminus of the preserved Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway.
The main racecourse has two separate courses alongside each other, the Old Course and the New Course. The New Course has a tricky downhill fence and a longer run-in for steeplechases than the Old Course. Hurdle races over two miles on the New Course also have a slight peculiarity in that most of the hurdles are jumped early on in the race with only two hurdles being jumped in the last seven furlongs.
There is also a cross-country course which is laid out inside the main racecourse and is used for cross-country steeplechases.
The racecourse is the home of The Centaur, one of the largest auditoria in the South West of England. This multiple-use complex seats over 2,000 people for conferences and around 4,000 standing for concerts. It is also home to the Steeplechasing Hall of Fame. From 1999 to 2013 the racecourse was the venue for the annual Greenbelt festival and remains the venue for the Wychwood Music Festival. The University of Gloucestershire holds its graduation ceremony and summer ball at the racecourse.
From 2008, the racecourse and "The Jockey Club" were in talks with Cheltenham Town F.C. about a possible move to the racecourse. This would have meant the building of a new stadium with a double sided stand, one side in the stadium and the other for watching the races. Talks went on for a while but in December 2011, Cheltenham Town F.C. decided against the move due to the financial gap, which the football club's chairman Paul Baker described as "in the millions".
On Friday 13 November 2015 Cheltenham Racecourse opened its new £45m 6,500-capacity Princess Royal Stand which completed the redevelopment of the course.