How to stop the sport going out of existence? Perhaps a Cheltenham day like this

Had you been here the noise would have been wonderful. Even without you, and my God you were missed, the sound was still sweet.

From their vantage point on a structure named after one heroine of Ireland they roared approval for two more. Honeysuckle and Rachael Blackmore were accepting their tickets to immortality in the Unibet Champion Hurdle and on the steps of the Dawn Run Stand the reduced Irish invasion reacted with joy.

They might have liked to get closer than the Cheltenham infield but that would have been against the rules. At this behind-closed-doors festival all the staff caring for Ireland's horses are living in a pop-up hotel that, like the grandstand that commemorates Dawn Run, is situated in the Best Mate enclosure. Only if they have a runner that afternoon are those workers allowed to cross the track and enter the posher bits. What they had and where they were was more than enough.