The Capital One Cup Final takes centre stage this weekend. There will be wall-to-wall coverage on Sky Sports 1 throughout Sunday and it promises to be a great day.
Cheltenham Festival countdown
Just 12 days to go now until the Festival kicks off and I'll preview all the races in next week's column. However, I'm often asked, as someone who works in and is passionate about football, why I enjoy the Cheltenham Festival so much - and this week I will try to explain what is so special about the four days at Prestbury Park for me.
1. Finale: Cheltenham is the envy of many sports. It brings the National Hunt season to a climax in perfect fashion. Every good horse targets Cheltenham and produces a finale that the flat boys are desperate to replicate. Some would say that's to the detriment of other good races during the year but that's not the case as they are top prizes in their own right yet we have the added intrigue of the majority doubling up as trials for Cheltenham.
No other sport has such a brilliant crescendo. Cheltenham is a League title and Cup Final all rolled in to one.
The Festival is also the one race meeting that captures the imagination of sports fans, in a way Royal Ascot, Aintree etc. struggle to do. The Grand National certainly does but Cheltenham manages to do it over all four days. It's the only meeting that gets people in the Sky Sports office talking about racing. My hope is always that the meeting throws up good enough stories to get racing on to the back and even front pages of the newspapers.
2. Rivalries: Cheltenham is all about rivalries. The England v Ireland battle rages brighter than ever, as does the competition between the top yards. The Sky Bet Supreme Novices Hurdle will set the tone for the week. Vautour v Irving is the perfect first skirmish between Willie Mullins and Paul Nicholls with both desperate to get off the mark and off to a flyer.
3. Winners: The old adage is that it's exactly the same to back 9/4 winner at the Cheltenham Festival as it is a 9/4 winner at Plumpton on a Monday. Of course, financially it is exactly the same but they don't compare when it comes to satisfaction. In fact, not much compares to successfully solving a Festival puzzle and roaring a winner up the famous hill. Nothing beats that buzz when they race down the hill for the final time and Mark Johnson exclaims on commentary that your jockey "hasn't moved a muscle".
Betting at Cheltenham has changed dramatically over the years. When I was an odds compiler at Ladbrokes in the 1990s the three days were the most important of the year but it has spiralled massively since then. We only used to bet ante-post on the Gold Cup and Champion Hurdle in those days, while now you can bet on the main races throughout the year. Back then I used to host one of the only Cheltenham Preview Nights at the Sports Cafe in London. How things have changed - for the better. The build-up is now magnificent.
Sky Bet will be going non-runner no bet on all the races in the next few days, which is yet another great innovation for the Festival and removes the complications of multiple entries. Don't go mad though unless you know you are beating the price and the betting will be fiercely competitive on the day.
My Festival will hinge on Jezki, Baily Green, Annie Power (in the World Hurdle), Kings Palace and Vukovar.
