Falling Cheltenham Festival numbers are not necessarily a bad thing - but the Jockey Club must grow revenues elsewhere

A trend has formed. From one year to the next there are fewer and fewer people going to the Cheltenham Festival. That pattern continued again this year, yet not only did this feel like an overwhelmingly positive festival, there was also a sense that a corner may have been turned.

Crucially, the racing was worth watching. There were undoubtedly too many odds-on favourites, some fields were disappointingly small and the litany of false starts was wholly unacceptable, but the competition on the track was absorbing, throwing up tremendous winners and enthralling stories.

The Gold Cup failed to follow the expected script but nonetheless produced gripping drama and a superb winner. The Champion Hurdle followed no script that has ever been written, but at the end of it we were reminded that even in the age of superpower domination, anything can happen. Marine Nationale was a most worthy winner of an emotional Champion Chase, Fact To File looked sensational in the Ryanair Chase and Rachael Blackmore's Stayers' Hurdle victory aboard Bob Olinger raised the rafters.