Time to pay tribute to one of the greats as racing returns to Cheltenham, with drama guaranteed

You need a lot of luck in this game but perhaps those punters who throng the stands at Cheltenham on Friday are in for an expensive few hours, having used up all their good fortune in merely being able to walk through the gates at the best racecourse while less happy souls are grafting away at the day job. A tricky looking card awaits, the kind that allows you the flattering thought that in having a bet you are showing some small fraction of the same bravery which we have come to take for granted in our jockeys.

"Lord, behold us with thy blessing, once again assembled here." This might be the only hymn ever quoted in the Racing Post and, although I can't find it in the cuttings library, I believe its opening line was used to herald day one at the festival some years ago by Alastair Down.

It is a timely thought because a pre-racing ceremony is due to take place at which Cheltenham's press room will be named after Alastair in the presence of the man himself, a writer of such quality, so deeply in love with the game that his reports were sometimes more fun to read than the race in question had been to watch.