No looking back for Fahey as he prepares for life without superstar Ribchester

There are many pressures that have routinely afflicted the equilibrium and jeopardised the sanity of successful Flat trainers down the years, but Richard Fahey has come up with another to add to the list. Nothing to do with intractable two-year-olds or early-onset Classic trials, this one is more concerned with a certain festival that has only recently moved aside to usher in the upcoming business of spring.

For four days this month, Fahey wrapped up proceedings at Musley Bank Stables in timely fashion to enable uninterrupted viewing of events unfolding at Cheltenham. Nothing was neglected, of course, not a pile left unshovelled or a coat left unbrushed, but for a former jump jockey the temptation of 28 National Hunt races of the highest standard is annually too much to resist and this year was no exception.

Fahey never had a festival winner as a rider, yet even now his interest in the action goes a step beyond recreational, as he casts his mind back to two failed assaults on the big meeting as a trainer, both of which came close enough to fruition to preserve the belief that ideas of success, while not prioritised, shouldn't be abandoned entirely.