'The pretender against the champion - that's what makes every sport so good'

It feels a bit like being in the back of a Jeep on safari with David Attenborough. So many beasts to ask about, so many territorial battles ahead and so much ground to cover with an iconic voice.

And Ruby Walsh has made a seamless shift from saddle to Attenborough’s kingdom of the small screen. He speaks a dialect we all understand and, as long as the most successful rider in Cheltenham Festival history is on our screens, racing will always have somebody who speaks the truth and will never buy shares in fabrication.

Walsh is typically forthright with his views on Constitution Hill. Autumn, as ever, is all about anticipation and the record-breaking Supreme Novices’ winner, who smashed the clock in last year’s festival opener, is the horse we are drooling over the most.