Royals, aristocrats and celebrities have gathered in a sea of furs, feathers and fascinators these past four days for what has been described as the racing world’s equivalent of London Fashion Week.
The Cheltenham Festival is one of the great sporting events of the year and a glittering date on the social calendar.
Ostensibly, at least.
The rich and famous, separated from hoi polloi in VIP private viewing boxes overlooking the course, drank Moet champagne at five-course a la carte receptions costing up to £1,750.
Outside, in the car parks serving the expensive hospitality and corporate sponsorship enclosures, were Rolls-Royces and Bentleys, ubiquitous Porsche SUVs and Range Rovers, along with more flashy Ferraris and other nouveau riche toys.
The Queen, Princess Anne and Carole Middleton, with her vintage black Hermes Birkin (similar bags currently retail on resale platforms for £50,000) were there for Ladies Day.
But behind the glitz and glamour, the unvarnished truth is that for many punters the sport of kings, even the blue riband Gold Cup itself, comes a distant fourth to drugs, sex and booze.
For despite appearances to the contrary, Cheltenham is where well-heeled women take cocaine in the loos and smartly dressed men spend their winnings at pop-up strip clubs and pay for prostitutes who pitch-up in this corner of the Cotswolds for the festival, a Daily Mail investigation can reveal.
Queen Camilla, Princess Anne and Carole Middleton attend Ladies’ Day at the Cheltenham Festival
Paul Townend riding Il Etait Temps after winning the BetMGM Queen Mother Champion Chase on day two of the festival
‘They aren’t interested in the horses or the racing,’ explained one (now former) Cheltenham stalwart. ‘They are there to get drunk and take drugs.’
One local racehorse owner, casting an exasperated eye over the course, likened proceedings on our visit this week to ‘Magaluf in the mud’.
No sooner had he spoken than a brawl between around six women erupted in the toilets near the famous Guinness Village stage, an entertainment hub featuring live music, which was captured in a video and posted on social media.
The women pulled hair and appeared to butt heads before collapsing in a heap on the floor as one horrified onlooker gasped: ‘Oh, my God!’
It’s hard to believe that cocaine or alcohol – or a mixture of both – did not play some part in the fracas.
The toilets, after all, is where much of the drug-taking occurs.
But Cheltenham, unlike, say Aintree, which has become associated with raucous hen and stag dos, has managed, up until now at least, to retain its ‘tweedy’ country set reputation.
For years, this was boosted by the presence of the Queen Mother who used to have her cortege stop at renowned Pate’s Grammar School for Girls where she would pause, and sometimes briefly emerge to receive flowers from the head girl while fellow pupils politely lined the street and waved before she continued on her way.
Teams of ‘sniffer’ dogs were patrolling the venue, though they only appeared to be at the main gates
One leading racing commentator said the security measures were carried out with ‘a light touch’
Those days have gone. Cheltenham’s guilty secret is out.
The changing face of the historic event, which has roots dating back to 1860, would have been obvious to anyone who arrived at the course for the four-day meeting: firstly, drug ‘amnesty’ bins were strategically placed at entrances: bearing the message ‘Please deposit any illegal items here.’ Secondly, teams of ‘sniffer’ dogs were patrolling the venue. The security measures are ‘carried out with a light touch, to quote one leading racing commentator, ‘acting as a deterrent rather than aggressive enforcement’ which could ruin the atmosphere.
The approach is understandable but does not appear to be working.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the ladies toilet cubicles in a car park used mostly by those in the exclusive Princess Royal Grandstand and Garrison Savannah club (the annual membership fee is up to £650).
Our reporters observed women in fedoras, tweeds, and riding boots going in and out of the loos all afternoon and discovered tell-tale traces of white powder left strewn across surfaces; some of the women were met by chauffeur-driven limousines when they emerged.
One eye-witness told us cocaine use by women festival goers was ‘very obvious’.
‘I have seen women high as kites, full of a buzz over the past few days,’ he said. ‘Cocaine was everywhere at the festival.
‘The women look stunning, in lovely dresses but you can just tell they’ve taken it. It’s mostly visible in the bar areas, they’re drinking champagne as well. There is a difference between someone who is drunk and someone who has taken cocaine.’
Our reporters discovered tell-tale traces of white powder left strewn across surfaces in the loos
Figures for the total number of arrests and the number of detections by the drugs dogs (there were 1,297 last year) have not yet been released by Gloucestershire police
Indeed, cocaine use, according to a drug dealer who agreed to speak to the Daily Mail, is rife in these parts.
‘It’s often the girls who are doing the buying, for themselves and their girlfriends,’ he told us.
‘I do extremely well here,’ he said, emphasising that he makes a small fortune during festival week.
‘I mean on the scale of festivals, I would rather be working here than at Glastonbury, for example – events you would think were more druggy. Here people are absolutely loaded and ready to part with very large amounts of money for cocaine,’ said the dealer. ‘People just seem to have Monopoly money – bundles of the stuff.
‘There are hardly any police about, it’s very easy to get in without being searched. I can quite easily make £15k to £20k a day selling one gram bags at £100 each. ‘One day last year I made almost £30,000.
‘A couple of fifty pound notes for a (one gram) bag. Or more usually, multiple bags of coke are sold at one time. This lot quite literally hoover the stuff up from before lunchtime and right throughout the day.’
The ease with which punters can consume illegal substances in public will come as a shock to those unfamiliar with the changing face of the festival.
‘There’s no hiding the fact that white powder covers every flat surface in every loo,’ the racehorse owner, who wished to remain anonymous, told us.
The Promenade, or The Prom as it is known locally, is one of Cheltenham’s most elegant streets, lined with Regency buildings, boutique shops and cafes
Under The Prom, a bar in the basement of one of the buildings in the parade, has been transformed this week into Eroticats lapdancing club
Lexi’s online calling card says she is touring for one week only in Gloucestershire and has her own (rented) apartment in the town centre
‘The organisers insisted some time ago that shelves in the toilets had been removed but the cisterns and handheld mirrors are props enough for conspicuous drug taking.
‘There are indeed sniffer dogs to prevent drugs coming in this year but they only appeared to be at the main gates, and not the gates joining the VIP car parks to the paid-for hospitality and corporate sponsorship areas where day tickets cost many hundreds of pounds.
‘Let’s face it, who is going to do a random drugs search on ‘Lady so and so’ in a private box with guests who arrive in chauffeured cars or by helicopter? No one frisks them or looks into their Gucci handbags, do they?’
The bacchanalian environment was evident in the gents at the high-end Vestey Bar under the Princess Royal Stand where one young man could be seen snorting a line of cocaine off the top of a urinal.
‘I can’t wait [in the queue for the cubicles],’ he said to another punter, who pointed out that he was spilling much of his precious powder.
A suspected drug dealer found in possession of between 20 to 30 individual bags of cocaine and £500 cash was arrested on Tuesday but figures for the total number of arrests and the number of detections by the drugs dogs (there were 1,297 last year) have not yet been released by Gloucestershire police.
The average attendance over the four days of the festival was 65,000 and the majority of race goers end up, not in the expensive enclosures, but in the beer halls – vast windowless tents, sponsored most famously by Guinness, which open at 10am.
But there is another relatively new, and tawdry, tradition which comes after the last race of the day: many of the beer tent revellers head for the fleshpots of Cheltenham, two words that never appear in the same sentence outside festival week, and to the services of young women like Lexi.
Her photograph, in plunging top, short skirt and stockings, is on her online calling card.
She introduces herself thus: ‘Hello Everyone XXX, I’m Lexi!!! … ‘I’m touring for one week only in Gloucestershire… I’ve been described as a naughty fun and down to earth girl… all very excited for race week.’
Lexi says she has her own (rented) apartment in the town centre, a pop-up brothel in all but name, and would be joined by a friend.
She was among many of the sex workers who descended on the spa town this week. Her flat was not the only kind of X-rated pop-up establishment which opened for business here.
The Promenade, or The Prom as it is known locally, is one of Cheltenham’s most elegant streets, lined with Regency buildings, boutique shops and cafes, stretching from the High Street to the Montpellier district.
Under The Prom is the name of a bar in the basement of one of the buildings in the parade but for the past week it has been transformed into Eroticats lapdancing club. The club’s website boasts: ‘Eroticats performers want to show you that they have what it takes to put a smile on your face.’
Clubs or bars can obtain a Sexual Entertainment Venues (SEV) licence to operate as a strip joint for more than one night.
Eroticats has a second licensed premises in the town and two further (unlicensed) establishments were also opened.
So, four sex clubs in the heart of the Cotswolds town that has a population of around 118,00.
Inside Eroticats, customers were invited into booths for ‘private dances’.
‘I went into a private booth with one of the women and she said a dance would cost £500,’ said an Irishman in his late 30s, who asked not to be named.
‘I asked what kind of dance and she said it was the kind with “VIP service”. I told her “Thanks, but no thanks.” I’m not losing my winnings for the day in a private booth in strip club.’
So-called PR girls hand out flyers for the club at the racecourse and Eroticats provides courtesy shuttle rides to their town centre establishments.
Residents have fought unsuccessfully against the return of the pop-up clubs which transform ‘the quiet centre of Cheltenham into a red light district’ during the festival.
‘Please stop the pornification of Cheltenham,’ pleaded one resident, who was one of a stream of online objectors.
‘I am extremely displeased at the flyers and that there are private booths. Make Britain decent again for women.’
Eroticats aside, one new arrival to Cheltenham added: ‘I was very surprised that for something so posh, the actual attendees are some of the trashiest groups of people I’ve encountered – loud, vulgar, vomiting everywhere, littering. It’s such a dichotomy to see someone in a posh hat vomiting in a bush on the pavement.’
Who could have imagined this is the real story behind all those glossy images of royalty at play?
Additional reporting: Kristina Wemyss, Nic North
