Fear Of Missing Cheltenham is real - the festival is the only show in town and it's ruining the sport

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I thoroughly enjoyed my small contribution to the Racing Post's 72-page Big Jump Off pullout on Monday, and have to say it really geed me up for the start of the new season proper.

I was tasked with looking at the novice chase division, and the list of decent horses set to embark on a chasing career could not fail to whet the appetite.

Although being allowed room to give a mention to just under 40 horses, I'm aware that I will have missed quite a few as it's always a big division and horses with low hurdles ratings can suddenly make tons of improvement.

The Real Whacker was the one glaring omission last year, and there will no doubt be one or two who make headlines that didn't appear on those pages.

Giovinco, who unseated on his chase debut for Lucinda Russell at Carlisle on Thursday, was one who nearly slipped the net as I'd completely forgotten about how promising he looked in three hurdles outings last season, albeit when kept away from the best company.

Fortunately nearly everyone I questioned in a bid not to miss anything obvious had his name on their lips and, memory jogged, he made the cut.

Hopefully he will turn into another star for a yard renowned for staying chasers (Russell is the only British-based handler on the Grand National roll of honour since Many Clouds won for Oliver Sherwood in 2015, and she has won it twice).

By the time I'd finished reading all my colleagues' efforts in the pullout on Monday I have to say I was full of excitement for the season ahead.

Then I read the first of this season's Racing Post Stable Tours, and Gordon Elliott's plans for the campaign of Gerri Colombe, and I fell back to earth with a hefty thud.

"I want to mind him and have him fresh for the Gold Cup," he said.

"My job is to have him in the best place I can for that day and I don't want to bottom him out before we get there."

This is not a case of singling out Elliott, as you are going to read several comments along those lines this autumn – he was just the first one to utter them about a star performer this season.

Gerri Colombe: will be campaigned sparingly to keep him fresh for the Cheltenham Gold CupCredit: John Grossick

It's nothing new, of course, as jumps trainers have been suffering from their own version of FOMO (fear of missing out) for several years.

It's called Fear Of Missing Cheltenham (FOMC), and what started as a trickle in the early part of this century reached epidemic proportions last season with no signs of an antidote.

It doesn't matter that there's virtually five months before we get there, the only show in town is the Cheltenham Festival, and the attitude towards it is ruining the sport in my eyes.

There were 13 Grade 1s at last year's festival (too many in the eyes of most racing fans) and there have been for quite a while, but this year nine of the horses who won them had raced only two times that season.

And that's not counting Champion Bumper winner A Dream To Share who, if you discount runs in May and June (officially they count, but not with me), ran just once.

In total, the 13 Grade 1 winners at this year's festival ran on average just under 2.4 times, while the figure for all races was just 2.8.

It never used to be like this.

I had a look, in five-year increments, all the way back to 1988 to see how Cheltenham Festival winners were prepared over time, and the numbers are startling.

Thirty five years ago, not long after I'd started my life at the Racing Post, Cheltenham Festival winners ran on average just over four times a season, but the trend, aside from the blip in 1993 when some of the winners ran an incredible number of times – Young Hustler won the Sun Alliance Chase on his 14th outing of the campaign, Gaelstrom the Sun Alliance Novices' Hurdle on his tenth and Deep Sensation the Champion Chase on his eighth – the trend has been steadily downwards.

I don't know why it first started, but FOMC is a virus that has over the years worked its way into the minds of nearly everyone involved with high-class jumpers.

A Dream To Share: last season's Champion Bumper winner raced just once from June to MarchCredit: John Grossick

Once they have seen trainers taste success with lightly raced horses they have decided to adopt the same modus operandi and it has become self-fulfilling.

Lightly raced horses win at the Cheltenham Festival because by and large they are all lightly raced when they get there.

Yet back in the good old days (yes, I'm getting on and jumps racing was genuinely better back then) it was much, much harder to win a race at the festival and yet horses did so on the back of strong campaigns with regularity.

Not so long ago, when discussing the upcoming third British season for Kauto Star, a horse who had his issues in his first two, Paul Nicholls was quoted as saying: "I'd like to get more runs into him this season."

And get runs he did, Kauto winning the Old Roan, Betfair, Tingle Creek, King George and Aon Chases before the Gold Cup itself.

Can you imagine a trainer saying that about any top horse these days?

So what has happened? Have horses suddenly become soft?

Evidently not when you consider the campaigns given to tons of other horses who may not be Cheltenham class.

Perhaps it's just high-class horses who aren't up to it these days, or perhaps, more likely, it's just trainers who have gone soft, the fear of not getting to the Holy Grail constantly eating away at them.

We're all to blame really, though. Week in, week out, quotes are given for festival races to horses who have done little more than confirm they still have four legs.

Every year we spend more and more time talking about the festival, yet every year we are given less and less to actually talk about in the run-up to it.

Sorry to put a damper on everyone's expectations, but I find that sad.

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