The Cheltenham Festival, the jump racing calendar's biggest annual event, began yesterday and is expected to attract over 160,000 racegoers. The festival is a celebration of Britain's second-most popular spectator sport, with Irish attendees making up a third of the crowd. This comes amidst a crisis in British racing, with Charles Allen, the chairman of the British Horseracing Authority (BHA), who resigned after six months due to "horse racing's intractable politics". Smaller racecourse owners, such as Arena Racing Company (ARC), have been reluctant to support the idea of an independent BHA board due to ARC's demand that the BHA continue charging a relatively low sum for "race-day data" which the racecourses then sell onto bookmakers. However, ARC and its allies have already fallen out with bookies, most notably Betfred, after seeking to raise the price of this footage. Meanwhile, the Jockey Club, owner of some of the most prestigious courses, has demanded a corporate governance review following Allen's resignation.