Horse racing fans are friskiest in sport thanks to 'love drug' released at events like Cheltenham Festival

RACEGOERS are the friskiest fans in sport with punters more likely to pull watching the horses than at a football or rugby match. 

The Cheltenham Festival is the "optimum climate" for thrill-seekers to couple up as gambling releases the "love drug" dopamine.

Just under half of horse racing punters boasted to pulling at the races - more than double the number of fans who got lucky at a footie game, according to an Illicit Encounters survey.

Therapist Helen Villiers said: "Dopamine is the reward hormone that releases a pleasurable feeling when we do something like win money. 

"It’s also intrinsically linked to sexual desire. 

"So throw winning money, alcohol lowering inhibitions, and everyone dressed to impressed into the mix, and we’ve got the perfect recipe for people acting on impulses they would normally control. 

"Cheltenham is the optimum climate for adult behaviour.

"Sports like football, tennis, and rugby simply don’t deliver the dopamine hit like racing does.” 

Over 60,000 racegoers descended on the famous Cheltenham racecourse on Wednesday for Ladies Day.

Across the four days of racing punters will place an estimated £1bn in bets, down 220,000 pints of Guinness and empty over 20,000 bottles of champers.

Of 2,000 Brits polled by Illicit Encounters, 46 per cent confessed to pulling at a major horse racing event versus one in five at the rugby and one in ten after a football match.

A total of 68 per cent said they had pulled, while a quarter confessed to cheating at a sport event. 

Illicit Encounters sex expert Jessica Leoni said: "With thousands of fillies and stallions dressed-up at Cheltenham the event is a short-odds bet to be hotbed for frisky behaviour – whether it’s with a current partner, or someone else."