West Ham stars take a shot at horse racing commentry ahead of Cheltenham Festival

FOUR West Ham players have been sent to Commentary School to see if they have what it takes to make it as a broadcaster ahead of the Cheltenham Festival.

 Stepping into the classroom with Betway were Joe Hart, Patrice Evra, Mark Noble and James Collins, where they take a look at previous Cheltenham events.

 ITV Racing’s Richard Hoiles, who was nominated as Sports Commentator of the Year in the recent British Sports Journalism Awards was on hand to teach them.

 As seen below, the West Ham stars then receive a grade based on how well their commentary went.

The 2018 Cheltenham Festival will begin on March 13, which will bring us four days of top-class racing.

The Cheltenham Festival is a UK annual event that is held in March, which brings together the best in British and Irish trained horses to race for a Grand National and money. During the festival, the horses perform much better than they do during the rest of the season. The festival is usually held in Cheltenham racecourse in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.

Majority of the races featured during this festival are top grade including Cheltenham Gold Cup, Champion Hurdle, Queen Mother Champion Chase and World Hurdle. The festival is usually held for over four days, and this year is no exceptional.

One peculiar thing that happens during the festival and over the festival week is gambling. A lot of money estimated to hundreds of millions is gambled during that week. There is also the Cheltenham roar, which refers to the enormous amount of noise that spectators generate at the start of the first race of the festival.

The Cheltenham Festival is believed to have begun in 1860 after the National Hunt Chase, which was held at Market Harborough. Since then, it has been held in March every year. It was however cancelled for the first time in 2001 due to an outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Britain. The second day of the festival was cancelled in 2008 due to heavy storms.

The types and numbers of races held in each festival have changed so much over the years. It was initially a two-day event, and then it became a three-day event and finally a four-day event in 2017.

The 2018 Cheltenham Festival is an event that many people are looking forward to. There are so many predictions in the air already, about winners on various categories versus the losers. The Gold Cup winner, Sizing John, will be defending his title. New and younger talents including Next Destination, Apple’s Shakira and Samcro are expected. Previous festival winners are gearing up, to ensure that they are winning again this time around.

Every day, the most significant race of the day will go off at 3.30pm. The highlight of the entire festival will be the Friday’s Gold Cup. The first race of each day will kick off at 1.30pm, and the last one will go off at 5.30pm. Each day will have seven runs, bringing the total to 28 by the end of the festival. ITV Racing will be broadcasting the Festival Live daily. Tickets are still up for grab at www.cheltenham.co.uk.