The Cheltenham festival is a spectator sport. The enjoyment comes from the participants, ticket buyers, bookies, owners, and gamblers.
However, not much attention is paid to those who must provide hospitable services to who attend the events or pubs.
Zac Smith, 23, is one such example of the underappreciated.
Having worked in several pubs in Bristol, he has seen what kind of crowd comes into the pubs during the races.
He started: “To be fair, it’s a decent mix of people. It’s mainly men, but from a variety of different backgrounds.
“Early in the afternoon, people are just eager for the races to begin and punters even ask if the staff have any tips or just for us to pick a random horse for them to stick £10 on.
“It was actually quite exciting as it was my first time watching any form of horse racing and then it starts.
“the noise ripped around the room and bounces off every surface followed by grunts, shouts and people waving newspapers.”
Zac had his first experience of the Cheltenham Festival in the discomfort of his workplace. His bad luck will continue as the day in question was a Friday, Gold Cup day, the final day of the festival.
From his recount of that day in particular, he sounded arguably overstimulated, but the worst of it was still to come.
He continued: “The noise came and went at times. The races felt like they went on for ages with the amount of screaming and flailing limbs we saw”
Peter Crouch spent £8000 on 1000 pints for punters at Cheltenham.
— Scotty Tips (@Scottytipss) March 13, 2025
What a legend 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 pic.twitter.com/PnQCdB45gv
The races continued and pints were poured. After the races concluded, a majority of the clientele stood up and left.
Smith admitted: “I felt such a relief that it was over and it could just turn back into a regular Friday night.
“I knew it was going to be busy, but I was glad the race lovers had left.
“But it got to around eight o’clock and we heard the door swing open. All I saw were fancy suits and crazy looking hats.
“One of my colleagues nudged me and told me that these new people must have all just got off at Temple Meads Train Station”.
The doors should have been propped open as the fourth and final day of the races are often the busiest and a reason for many celebrate their wins or drown out their losses.
He said: “A stupid amount of people then rushed in. It got busy quickly, but I’m pretty sure a lot of them had been drinking on the train on the way back from the races.
“It all just escalated so quickly., the bar front was just a blur at moments.
“Honestly, it was a swarm of people all red-faced and shouting, I simply couldn’t wait for my shift to be over.”
😡 "Stop talking about the Gold Cup!"
— talkSPORT (@talkSPORT) March 10, 2026
Jamie O'Hara almost lost it after Cundy said Harry Redknapp would turn down Spurs for the Cheltenham Gold Cup 🤣 🐎 pic.twitter.com/sOjCCOCzB6
