Animal welfare is just one problem for a sport that will have its moment in the sun at the Cheltenham festival
Thirty years ago this week, after Desert Orchid had winged up the Cheltenham hill as if auditioning for a role as Pegasus, the Observer’s Hugh McIlvanney noticed something unusual: everywhere he looked tears were being shed by people who didn’t normally cry.
“The flood of emotion was so extraordinary that it invited us to wonder how many human champions, let alone horses, have ever commanded such undiluted devotion from the British public,” he wrote after Dessie’s stunning Gold Cup victory, lauding the horse as the embodiment of what makes racing “an irresistible sport to so many”.
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