All The Joys Of Spring

2/3/24

After what has seemed like a very long, dark, wet, February the Cheltenham Festival is now just around the corner so hopefully we will have proper spring-like conditions and fair ground for all contenders.

It is currently soft ground but we are all aware how quickly it can dry out with the drainage system that the racecourse has in place but the long-range forecast is mixed so I am thinking that The Form Book won’t get totally turned upside down as a significantly quicker surface seems unlikely. So many strong favourites but they won’t all win so working out the most vulnerable will be key to the Grade 1 races.

The Cheltenham Festival Preview Evenings circuit is now in full swing and I will be attending five of them on consecutive days next week appearing on two panels and picking up what I can from the other three, so clocking up plenty of mileage (East Midlands down to London up to Banbury up to Liverpool across to York and back down to London before back home to the East Midlands). Ooooh, have I got some tasty questions lined up for AP McCoy at the William Hill event in Liverpool!

Plenty of driving time then to catch up on the 22 podcast shows that I currently listen to weekly! Nick Luck Daily (x5), The News Agents (x5), The News Agents USA, The Rest Is Football (3), The Rest Is Politics (x2), Leading, Betfair Racing (x2), Sporting Life Racing, Official Eurovision and The Barstewards Enquiry. Just letting that sink in.

With the Cheltenham columns going daily from Monday plus given all the travel, time is not on my side so the other columns will be shorter than usual over the coming fortnight or so. As usual there will be no Ante Post Focus or Weekend Race Previews during Cheltenham week and Andy Richmond will need an extra week put to put his Cheltenham review together in his Beating The Bias column to cover everything that he wants to say.

The General Sports columns will continue as usual on Sundays though over the next three weekends and we have The Players’ Championship golf from Sawgrass to look forward to the weekend after Cheltenham this year rather than the weekend before, which is seen as the ‘fifth major’. Good, as my head is into Cheltenham when that tournament is usually on so now I can watch the weekend golf properly Cheltenham clutter-free.

The United Kingdom released their Eurovision Song Contest entry yesterday. More on that in the General Sports column tomorrow but all I will say is that just over half the songs are in and I doubt that we have heard the winner yet.

Staying on a musical theme, it’s the Brit Awards tonight. I preferred it when it was the British Rock & Pop Awards hosted by Noel Edmonds! Prince walking up to collect his award with his bouncer a highlight. No betting on this like with the Mercury Prize but Raye is set to clean up.

I will miss it as am taking my daughter on an annual surprise trip to London today where she has no idea what I have planned until we turn up at the events. She won’t be reading this so I am looking forward to The War Of The Worlds Immersive Experience this morning followed by Abba Voyage in the afternoon and The Jack The Ripper Walking Tour tonight. I did the Ripper Tour about 30 years ago which was fun back then so it will be interesting to see outside which co-op or building society the murders took place this time!