THERE’s that old saying that we presume is intended to help you along the road in life.

“Make your hobby your job and you’ll never work a day in your life”

As Cheltenham arrives again, for us racing folk, we need to think on that again. More like you’ll be consumed by work from 8am ‘til 10pm every day for the next two weeks.

Yes, it’s like the run-in to Christmas but you go to bed, still thinking, Facile Vega, there’s no way he can be beaten? It’s a two-mile flat race. But he will be won’t he? You wake up and the first image that comes in focus is the sight and sound of Honeysuckle heading for that final bend and the roar if Appreciate It is in pursuit.

You know it’ll be a bitter sweet, flat out, exhausting work week again, and there’s the annoyance of two bank holidays this year! Ah, if only I could go back to those youthful Cheltenhams again when all you had to do was sit and watch.

But no, they too had some trauma.

Being a racing mad child in a non-racing family, with a father who preferred GAA and wrestling miles ahead of racing, it was pretty stressful for Saturdays and big race meetings.

The father only knew the names of two horses Red Rum and Night Nurse. No, actually there was a third. He was called the Irish Horse. And the thing was, you learned you could place him to advantage in any big race. The patriotic pride was something you could play on, to get to see a race in one TV per house times. Daddy, the Irish horse might win. It didn’t matter that he was transposed as Tied Cottage or Monksfield and could then become The Minstrel come the summer.

You could wangle one day off school for Cheltenham from an understanding mother but a father would soon wonder why you a bad cold every March, just when the days were getting brighter.

I never saw Golden Cygnet win the Supreme live and whatever I learned at school that day is of little use now. I’d trade it now for that memory.

Called off

There was often stress too in those late ‘70s days of the meeting being called off for heavy going or the Champion Hurdle being switched for better ground. Which day to take off? Chinrullah or Monksfield?

Spanners into the works could come in any form. The new parish priest came to call on his parishioners. Afternoon tea and best behaviour. But...but, not the day of the Gold Cup. I listened to Davy Lad and Tied Cottage on the radio sitting on the back step as the PP was entertained in the sitting room.

In the land of one TV in the house, the GAA also had the potential to get in the way if Paddy’s Day fell in the middle of the Festival and my father was more interested in the damned Railway Cup matches.

Frantic calls on neighbours were often needed to accommodate all. Eliogarty and the ‘Famous Five’ were watched a few miles from home.

The Dawn Run years came at the end of school days when it was easier to escape school. Where were you went she won the Gold Cup? Watching “the mare’s beginning to get up” sitting on the range in the kitchen, trying not to be seen crying.

Holidays booked

It was much easier when you moved on to work life, holidays for those three days in March, the first thing booked in January. But the Friday after Desert Orchid won the Gold Cup was one of the most depressing ever. What could equal that?

At work you could find some kindred spirits. And betting became another attractive element. The good, the bad and the ugly.

Cool Dawn in the Gold Cup was good. My big success to impress. I’ll still use that forgive one bad last time out run if there is a genuine excuse rule. The markets will undoubtedly overreact and even more so if the horse was previously progressive. You can be the wise guy.

The 1999 RSA was the bad. Heading into the local that evening for the mid-week betting bulletin. Well, how’s it going so far?

The faithful are in silence over the last pint. Compose a tune for a punter’s lament and it would be the Ballad of Nick Dundee.

Glassy eyed, slurring of tongue, head shakes. A chorus of ...Nick... Dun... Dee. Pause and repeat. Nick Dun Dee.

He brought as much punter anguish as to those more closely connected with the ill-fated chaser who crashed through the fourth last.

The ugly came in on the back of a young Richard Johnson. A workmate would take out a Credit Union loan to boost his betting bank. Again in 1999 he had a beautiful, probably life changing yankee going on to Le Coudray in the Stayers’.

It took him a long, long time to recover from that neck defeat. Please gamble responsibly wasn’t the refrain back then.

These days everyone shouts their best bets from a high. But the worst bets over the years are more amusing.

Being full-on convinced and investing in the belief that Shadow Leader would have too much speed for Istabraq was not my finest judgement.

A scan through all the different past winners brings back times and places, great horses and joy shared from the likes of great McManus winners to the more ‘ordinary’ folk who returned in equal joy with Flakey Dove, Danoli, Norton’s Coin and Coneygree.

Whatever happens over the next week, once that roar goes up at 1.30 on Tuesday, we are in heaven for four days!