Irish raiders on the attack already as Cheltenham's October meeting grows in importance

Back to Cheltenham we go in search of that old familiar magic. You only have to run your eye down that card to know this will be a good day, seven races and an average of 11 runners, all those names, some comfortably familiar, others promisingly new.

Frankie Dettori has disappeared to join his showbiz mates in California and it feels like a lot of the fizz has gone out of the Flat season after Champions Day, for all that there's a couple of weeks left on the turf and the small matter of an influential Group 1 contest to be staged in Yorkshire. In racing's eternal marketplace, Newmarket is packing up while the West Country is once more setting out its wares.

It's the right time of year to remember Will Ogilvie's poem 'Steeplechasers' about transition between the seasons: "Tucked away in winter quarters, Frankel's sons and Kingman's daughters," – I've updated this line only slightly – "Where no danger can befall them, Rest till next year's Classics call them.