IT’S always a pleasure to be asked to write a colour piece on the Punchestown Festival. Almost always.

Roaming the packed enclosures, everyone in good form, chatting to strangers about gambles and gúnas, spring in the air and a spring in your step.

Of course it was always going to be different this year but you can never prepare for it. Walking through the entrance building into that vast, empty enclosure. A lone catering van and a handful of parked cars dwarfed by the empty three-storey grandstand buildings.

Even the Covid race-going regulars say it feels strange this week. Punchestown was built to hold big numbers. With only a handful of people around, and spread out over such a large space, there is zero atmosphere.

As you walk around you remember what’s missing – the stage with its mix of live music, interviews and best-dressed hopefuls, the familiar faces you would see on the benches, around the parade ring, or queuing at the Tote.

You walk out to the shopping village – empty. No corporate marquees with half-drunken eejits falling out of them roaring into their mobiles. “We’re in a tent beside the big Ladbrokes shop. Where are you? I have a spare wristband for ya.” God, I miss those eejits.

Vaccination centre

The big yellow event centre is cordoned off this year. It’s being used as a Covid test and vaccination centre and there are more cars parked over there than there are at the enclosure. What a great prize that would have been for the racecard draw. “One lucky winner will win a vaccine for two.”

Around the front of the grandstand, the betting ring is completely deserted. RTÉ has set up a makeshift studio in the stand, overlooking the winning post.

There’s Dan Skelton, back in from walking the track. He’s chatting to Katie Walsh, who looks like a policewoman aboard the immaculate Thousand Stars. They have the entire enclosure to themselves and Katie can even shout over to the jockeys as they go out for the Grade 1 Champion Novice Hurdle.

Approximately 25 people are in the stand to watch this race. As Echoes In Rain draws clear, the only cheer is from Anna McSparron, groom of the 40/1 runner-up Colonel Mustard. His trainer Lorna Fowler should be jumping up and down as she waits for Conor Orr to come back in on her stable star. But instead of receiving congratulations from all sides, Lorna waits in solitude, almost as if she is watching a strange dream unfold.

“Such a shame the owners couldn’t be here – they would have loved this,” she says. Yes, but only if there were 25,000 others there too. It’s not the same with everyone else missing.

Later, Chacun Pour Soi blitzes them in the Champion Chase – again passing the post in silence. Imagine the roar he would have got clearing the last. Imagine Rich Ricci, daring to look at the big screen, shaking hands with well-wishers and telling the crowd he enjoyed Punchestown way more than Cheltenham.

We are awoken from our daydream by the sight of Dick O’Sullivan, the legendary former racecourse manager who still has an input into the management team. Dick was delighted to get his second Covid vaccination recently. “T’would give you great peace of mind,” he says.

Dick has been calling all the race sponsors this week, letting them know how much the support is appreciated. “If you had told me we would miss the 2020 Festival and have no people here in 2021, I would have said ‘RIP Punchestown’, but in fact we’re not doing too badly,” he says, and the twinkle is still there.

“Good times will come around again,” he says, before disappearing into the evening mist.

Wise words, Dick. In the meantime, we will enjoy the racing even if it is probably more enjoyable watching from home these days.