JUST three more sleeps now, four if you are reading the digital version of this on Friday night. And if you are, time to go to bed now. The sooner you get to bed, the sooner the Sky Bet Supreme Novices’ Hurdle will be upon you.

Appetite-whetting and all as the build-up is, fascinating and all as the 2017 Cheltenham Festival is, the one that stretches before you now for as far as your inner-eye can countenance (how many times recently have you said, after Cheltenham?), it could have been even more fascinating.

The 2017 Cheltenham Festival will go ahead without Don Cossack and Faugheen and Annie Power and Sprinter Sacre, and of course without poor Vautour. It has also lost Thistlecrack and Valseur Lido and Coney Island.

It isn’t just that none of the four feature race winners from last year are returning to defend their titles, it is that none of the four are returning. Full stop. For any race at the 2017 Festival.

The Cheltenham Festival has lost high-profile horses before. If you are of a certain vintage you will remember the defections of Gay Spartan and Jack Of Trumps from the Gold Cup, of Gaye Brief from the Champion Hurdle and, more recently, of Best Mate from an attempt at a fourth Gold Cup. But it is difficult to recall a Cheltenham Festival that has been shorn of as many top-class contenders as this one has.

And yet, it still fascinates It is still going to be difficult for children to get to sleep on Cheltenham Eve. Hopefully everybody else gets there now. Okay, nobody stand on a stone between now and Tuesday.