Good to soft going at Cheltenham

The Cheltenham N.H. festival, the most eagerly awaited meeting of the year, starts today and the good news is that the going is good to soft, which should be ideal for most runners, after much less rain than expected fell last night. The appeal of Cheltenham lies not only in the wonderful natural setting if the racecourse, but in the hiughly comoetie nature of the racing, with 20+ runners in most events, and the rivalry not only between British and Irish trainers, but also between the various British training centres. The Irish launch their usual strong challenge, although apparently Irish visitor numbers will be down sharply but we fancy that the trainers in South-West England will have the advantage this time, notably Paul Nicholls and David Pipe. Other trainers to note are Tom George and Jonjo O´Neill, both in tremendous form, while Willie Mullins with 27 horses entered at the meeting is obviously the Irish trainer to follow.