Optimism and anticipation as festival nears the starting line

These last days before the Cheltenham Festival begins are the sweetest of the racing year. They are days full of possibility and hope, the racing now so close that the waiting simply draws one further in, each passing hour heightening the anticipation like the rollercoaster cart clicking to the top of the big dip as the air grows thick with expectation.

The agonising potential for injury, a curse that has struck with abandon in the run-up to this year's festival, now recedes almost entirely from view. The trials are all complete, the form in the book. At long last, the races begin to adopt their final shape. With only the customary few exceptions, horses are locked on to their targets. Now we can sit down, ponder the numbers, the replays, the rumours, the tips and the preview night quips with the quiet satisfaction of knowing the action lies just around the corner.

No other sporting event produces such a keenly observed and widely enjoyed preamble as Cheltenham. Jumps racing has been building towards this since the close of last year's festival, and there has been little else on anyone's mind since King George day. In recent weeks, hundreds of festival preview evenings, virtually all of them starring Davy Russell, have dispensed rumour, opinion and mixed-quality banter.