The complicated unwritten rules of Cheltenham fashion

There's no official dress code but that doesn't make dressing for the racing festival any easier, discovers Katie Rosseinsky

Do women have to wear a fascinator? Do men need to dress like they're attending a shooting party hosted by Julian Fellowes? Is tweed essential? And what if it chucks it down? Think of the Cheltenham Festival and you'll probably picture, well, all of the above: a sea of countrified herringbones and checks, fur collars and more fedoras than a pick-up artist convention, probably adorned with pheasant feathers.

But while other equestrian events have always tended to enforce strict, often specific dress codes, Cheltenham has never had an official policy on race-day attire. The expectation that ticket holders would dress smartly was just one of the unwritten rules so common in posh-skewing events, especially those involving horses. Last year, though, things loosened up a bit. The Jockey Club (that’s the organisation that owns 15 of Britain’s most famous racecourses – the likes of Aintree, Epsom, Sandown and Cheltenham, but not Ascot, the proud enforcer of British horse racing’s most byzantine dress code) scrapped edicts about dress across all of its venues. The only exception, it said, would be “offensive fancy dress, offensive clothing of any kind and replica sports shirts”.