Cheltenham Festival worldwide interest: India and Germany make surprise appearances

The Cheltenham Festival, held over four days in March each year, is hugely popular among racing fans in both Britain and Ireland. 60,000 racegoers pack out the venue on each day of the festival and millions more tune in to follow the action unfold on TV.

Outside of the British Isles, Flat racing is the version of the sport that thrives with only small pockets of Jumps racing taking place in other countries yet irishracing.com’s research shows that Cheltenham’s National Hunt Festival is a big deal around the world and generates huge interest among racing fans in many far flung corners of the globe.

As expected, UK and Ireland top Cheltenham Festival searches on Google

Not surprising, the Cheltenham Festival is responsible for more Google searches in the UK than anywhere else in the world with 7.8 million people annually looking for information about the event.

Ireland, despite its relatively small population, is Cheltenham crazy when it comes to Google searches and is second only to the UK when it comes to finding out about the Festival. For a country with a population of just 5.1 million people there are 3.9 million annual searches for terms such as Cheltenham Festival, Cheltenham Races, Cheltenham Hotels and Cheltenham Tickets.

Cheltenham interest is buoyant in the USA, Australia & Canada

The USA comes in third in the list of annual searches related to Cheltenham races with 1.2 million searches. Not bad considering how insular the Americans can be when it comes to their sport, but of course a significant proportion of their population would originate from Ireland and Britain. America has two towns named Cheltenham, one in Pennsylvania and a neighbourhood in St. Louis, Missouri is also named after the English Spa town.

After the UK, Ireland and the USA, the country that comes in fourth with Cheltenham related searches is Australia. The Aussies love their sport almost as much as they love to bet which probably accounts for their interest in searching for Cheltenham on the internet. The Cheltenham Festival is a nighttime affair for the Australians with the action beginning after midnight each day and running through to 4.30am.

Next in our list is another English speaking country with close historical ties to both the UK and Ireland. Canada is responsible for 300,000 annual Google searches for Cheltenham and comes in fifth in the list. The province of Ontario is another place with a town called Cheltenham.

India and Germany make surprise appearances in joint sixth place

To a large extent the top five is relatively predictable, but after that the list of countries searching for information about the Cheltenham Festival is quite surprising. Germany and India are tied for sixth place with around 200,000 annual searches each and neither is a country you would readily associate with an interest in National Hunt racing.

The remainder of the top ten is made up of Netherlands, New Zealand and Switzerland. Three small countries that at first glance it’s hard to fathom why they would be so interested in the Cheltenham event. Horse racing is a leading sport in New Zealand which may account for that country's interest in the Festival.

It turns out Cheltenham town is twinned with the town of Stampersgat in the Netherlands which may explain some of the Dutch searches. The 2nd Battalion of the Gloucestershire Regiment liberated Stampersgat after four and a half years of German occupation in November 1944. The interest from the Swiss is not as readily explained.

Cheltenham Festival searches shock as France interest is low

France is one country that you would expect to find much higher up the list. The French love their horse racing and stage one of the biggest Flat races in the world each year, The Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, and their National Hunt racing is thriving. Despite this and their close proximity - only 21 miles separates England and France across the English channel - they only come in at number 19 in our list. Perhaps this says as much about the French use of Google as it does about their interest in the Cheltenham races. Countries such as Nigeria and Bangladesh search for Cheltenham Festival related topics more often than the French.

Top 20 Countries where the Cheltenham Festival is most popular

Overall Cheltenham can certainly be classed as a truly Global sporting event with people from all over the world taking an interest in the four day Festival which takes place this year from Tuesday 14th - Friday 17th March.