Naturally, it's not all good news. There was, for instance an unacceptable slippage in the Champion Hurdle where only the first four past the post were Irish as opposed to the first five last year. But we're a forgiving lot and we'll allow that one to slide. Just don't let it happen again.

Every year, expectation rises another notch as February coughs March into shivering existence. Preview nights burst at the seams this year, hotel ballrooms all across the country filled to beyond capacity. A thousand, 1,200, sometimes up to 1,500 people crammed in, sat down stood up at the back and around the sides, all to hear information that in the end was pretty much worthless.

How many times before last week did you hear about Sweet Wake and Denman and Racing Demon and Whatever-Ruby's-Riding-In-TheBumper?

But the funny thing is that whether or not these tips, inside lines and educated guesses paid off doesn't really matter a damn. The previews are half the fun . . . not to mention the most lucrative fundraisers since the advent of the GAA club lotto . . . but their real consequence is the ramping up of expectation yet another notch.

And every year, racing in Ireland rises still higher to meet it. As if it was that easy, as if that's just what's supposed to happen. We came home last year warning that there was every chance the week had been an aberration.

Nine winners was phenomenal, especially considering the fact that of the new races, only one was won by an Irish horse . . . Spot Thedifference in the Cross Country.

But now 10? And by 10 different trainers (since you ask, the other 14 races were shared between eight English-based handlers). And for the second year in a row . . .

which, again, means the second time ever . . . more prize money coming across the Irish Sea than staying there.

It's getting harder and harder to work out just who's supposed to be the underdog here.

Two years ago, the best finish of the week was also the first of the week, an epic battle in the Supreme Novices' Hurdle between Brave Inca and War Of Attrition. Did we know that we saw the future that day? If we did, there were few of us willing to stand up and vouch for it.

Looking at the two now, in the aftermath of their respective greatest days, is a bit like comparing and contrasting the Munster and Leinster rugby teams. Brave Inca is stubborn and dogged and cussed as hell. You got the feeling watching him on Tuesday that if Hardy Eustace or Macs Joy had been fitted with jet-packs, he and Tony McCoy would have found a way of staying ahead of them. And it hardly needs saying that Harchibald is unlikely to have forced his way past.

As for the Gold Cup winner, the jumps War Of Attrition put in over the final two fences with the greatest prize in National Hunt in the balance were as slick and stylish as anything Felipe Contepomi and Brian O'Driscoll could dream of coming up with. At a time when poor, lamented Beef Or Salmon was getting bumped and barged back down the field, Conor O'Dwyer's horse was striding away at the front, neat and tidy as an altar boy's haircut.

And this at the end of three miles and two furlongs from a horse that wasn't certain to get the trip.

It was a performance that saved the Gold Cup and gave it a worthy winner. Kicking King would have had plenty to say coming up the hill but for here and for now, the little gold trophy (of which they make a brand new one every year, trivia fans) is in deserved hands.

Part of the beauty of Cheltenham often lies in the connection with the old as well as the thrill of the new. O'Dwyer's second Gold Cup win came 10 years after his first.

In the very next race, Ray Hurley, the forgotten man who had trained Imperial Call to that win in 1996 returned to the winner's enclosure with Whyso Mayo. On Wednesday afternoon, Ray Rooney had stood in that self same spot himself, as the owner of Sky's The Limit, the first time he'd done so since his legendary Golden Cygnet had brought him there 28 years ago. The world turns in mysterious and glorious ways.

Not for everyone, of course.

Willie Mullins brought two empty boxes back with him, Christy Roche lost Nowhere To Hyde . . . one of two JP McManus horses to be killed.

In all nine horses didn't survive the week, the most in over two decades.

It's an intractable quandary.

Any animal rights campaigner who damns National Hunt people as exploiters of horses and users of them as playthings ought to have seen poor Davy Condon in the hours after Holy Orders was lost on Thursday. Condon has lived every step of this horse's life with him and stood up for him defiantly in Australia three years ago when all and sundry sniggered down their sleeves at him in the buildup to the Melbourne Cup. He was utterly inconsolable after the World Hurdle.

Equally, though, racing people who don't grant that cruelty to these animals goes on need be directed no further than the withdrawal under instruction from the stewards of both Astonville and Turnium from Friday's Gold Cup. Both horses ran against Brave Inca in the Champion Hurdle on Tuesday and both were entered again on Friday even though their trainer Phillippe Cottain hadn't travelled over from France, nor had he sent anyone to take care of them.

Both horses had been cared for throughout the week by stable staff looking after other horses who couldn't bear to see these two animals left neglected. The stewards stepped in two hours before the Gold Cup to stop them running in a race in which they had no earthly chance of finishing within a mile of the winner. The exception rather than the rule . . . at this level anyway . . . but a sad reminder in a clouded week all the same.

It's an issue that will never go away. No amount of good intentions, money or safety measures will make racing a totally safe sport. The nuclear option of banning it wouldn't mean racehorses would be safe, it would mean they simply wouldn't exist. So on we'll go, agreeing something should be done but never quite arriving at what. An intractable quandary.

The truth of it is, the people whose money keeps the industry alive weren't on the whole heartbroken when the fifth race on Thursday took the lives of three horses.

When they heard about it that evening, most punters will have taken more notice of the 33-1 that was on offer for the winner Hot Weld than the fact that Millenaire, Basilea Star and Mr Babbage didn't make it back.

It's an unpalatable truth but as much a part of racing as the guts of Brave Inca and the class of War Of Attrition.

PERFECT 10: THE IRISH WINNERS AT CHELTENHAM War Of Attrition (trained by Mouse Morris, ridden by Conor O'Dwyer) . . .Gold Cup Brave Inca (Colm Murphy, Tony McCoy) . . . Champion Hurdle Newmill (John Joseph Murphy, Andrew McNamara) . . . Champion Chase Nicanor (Noel Meade, Paul Carberry) . . . SunAlliance Hurdle Hairy Molly (Joseph Crowley, Paul Carberry) . . . Champion Bumper Native Jack (Philip Rothwell, Davy Russell) . . . Cross Country Dun Doire (Tony Martin, Ruby Walsh) . . . William Hill Trophy Sky's The Limit (Edward O'Grady, Barry Geraghty) . . . Coral Cup Kadoun (Michael O'Brien, Tom Ryan) . . . Pertemps Final Whyso Mayo (Ray Hurley, Damien Martin) . . . Foxhunters' Chase