Harry short of friends as panel gets stuck into Stayers' Hurdle

The buzz is ever-present, of course. It rumbles away subconsciously all year, like the constant hum of traffic while you're lying awake in a cheap motorway hotel, thinking about Rosemary, thinking about the law. And even when we sleep, eventually, it's always there.

Now and again that background noise is piqued to a peak, like the perky, jerky trail of a heart monitor, by the transitory glory of a Cue Card, a Defi Du Seuil, a bumper horse streaking away from the field. Thus refuelled, we look forward to these four days at Cheltenham in March with a renewed fervour. It's close now.

Preview evenings bring it closer, amplify the buzz until it roars in our ears like the sound of the sea. Plenty have stayed behind after racing at Ascot to get that countdown clock ticking, to sit with kindred spirits, to think about what they might save their money for at the festival. As the panel assembles the conversation dies to a whisper, over which the boys at the bar shout 'Millwall, Millwall'. No, lads, not that sort of buzz.