Five-day Festival not ruled out by Cheltenham chairman

Martin St Quinton happy with current format, but open to “ways of innovating”.

New Cheltenham racecourse chairman Martin St Quinton has refused to rule out the possibility of adding a fifth day to the Festival meeting in the future.

St Quinton, who has owned top-class horses such as Coulton and Monkerhostin, succeeded Robert Waley-Cohen at the end of the 2018-19 jumps season.

Speaking to ITV Racing, he said: “We’re very happy with our four-day Festival at the moment, but we’re always keen to look at ways of innovating and improving things and widening the appeal of racing.

“I wouldn’t rule anything in, but I wouldn’t rule anything out.

“It would get a lot of opposition, but people don’t like change. People complained when it went from three days to four, but now everybody loves the four-day Festival.

“Royal Ascot was very similar with the Heath meeting on the Saturday and now that is their most popular day, so you’ve got to be open-minded about these things.”

St Quinton added a decision on which race the new mares’ chase will replace in 2021 will be taken after a review of this year’s Festival.

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