How to work out which Cheltenham favourites you would be better off avoiding

Time has been scarce this winter. The workload has been so relentless that an equine reincarnation of yours truly would have long since migrated – head down, ears flat back – to the rear of his box.

The cumulative effect has left me woefully under prepared for next week's annual dust-up with the bookies, especially where Cheltenham's handicaps are concerned. Some of these markets are headed by horses I've never heard of.

That's how badly tailed off I am, so where to start in an effort to make up for lost time? It's too late to read any of the festival preview publications, and if I did it would probably be the one which will fare worst this year. Yet just when the cause seemed hopeless came the apparition of an angel of mercy.