WE have had two winning days so far, so no complaints from me or my boss Pat O’Hare, though it is definitely a bit quieter in the ring this year. Tickets are down but turnover is up. Sometimes you’d be standing idle before a race, and that would never happen at Cheltenham.

Wednesday got off to a bad start, from our point of view, with Envoi Allen. We took some lumpy bets of £5,000 and £3,000 on the favourite. The one saving grace was that Sporting John finished out of the frame – he was well-backed by the home crowd.

In all my years coming to Cheltenham, I have never seen a horse do what Champ did in the RSA Chase. He touched 400 in running on the machine. We won something small on this race – both Minella Indo and Allaho were losers in our book.

The Coral Cup was a horrible race to bet, like a lot of Cheltenham handicaps. You lay plenty of runners and most of the time you end up paying out everything you took in. The winner, Dame De Compagnie, was the 5/1 favourite, so that was a bad result. The third horse, Thosedaysaregone (10/1) was also well backed.

With Altior and Chacun Pour Soi non-runners, the atmosphere dipped before the Champion Chase. Only the professionals got involved with Defi Du Seuil and we laid it for plenty at 4/11 and 2/5. The biggest single bet we took was £5,000. There was plenty of 4/9 available at the off.

Before racing we were offering a treble on Envoi Allen, Defi Du Seuil and Tiger Roll all winning, and we took about a grand on that.

We won another couple of grand on the Cross Country Chase. It was a dead match between the front two in the betting. They were the only two horses punters were interested in, although there was a few quid each-way for Might Bite and Neverushacon.

The Boodles was another horrible handicap to bet but it was competitive and Aramax was a small winner for us. Any time you win on the handicaps you are happy.

Ferny Hollow was a great result in the bumper, not just for the firm but also for me personally as I had backed him at 14/1 ante-post. I had heard all about him before he ran and, even though he was beaten twice after pulling hard in his races, I loved the way he won in the hood at Fairyhouse, and I just felt the hill would suit him.

In the ring we laid Appreciate It for our maximum – we went 2/1 and were knocked down in the rush. There was also good money for Queens Brook (third at 6/1) and David Pipe’s Panic Attack (10/1), who ran no race.