It affects people in different ways. Sometimes the symptoms are barely noticeable, but those that develop acute cases can lapse into bouts of edgy and unpredictable behaviour, struggling with the effects of a mysterious condition they don't even know they have contracted.

Their loved ones notice an anxious descent into irrational decision making.

For instance, only this week a poor soul in Waterford was discovered trying to place an ante-post bet on Black Jack Ketchum to win the World Hurdle, without even knowing what the going will be like next Thursday. If his friends hadn't been there to stop him. . .

Thankfully, this year's epidemic of 'Pre March Tension' is almost behind us and by two o'clock on Tuesday it will disappear suddenly and completely. This year's strain has been particularly virulent - and the recent spate of late withdrawals of fancied Irish horses has stoked up the ailment in the same way that mosquitoes stoke up malaria.

Celestial Wave and In Compliance were joined on the absentee list this week by Macs Joy and War of Attrition, and it was the withdrawal of the latter that invoked the craziest notion of this year's pre-Cheltenham madness - that Henrietta Knight was right all the time.

Her ex stable star, Best Mate, will this week become one of the 16 inductees into the Cheltenham Hall of Fame, and while there is no doubt it is a well deserved honour, it is a little odd that Istabraq is still anxiously awaiting a phone call from The Cotswolds. Nor is there any question that Knight masterfully executed her strategy of only testing Best Mate a couple of times a year in the overriding quest to keep him sound for Cheltenham.

What is very much in doubt is the slightly despairing conclusion reached by some this week after the injury to War of Attrition, that the only way to guarantee a defence of the Gold Cup is to wrap the champion in cotton wool, race him infrequently and hope for a fair wind and fortune.

The fact that the two most recent winners, Kicking King and War of Attrition, were unfit to defend their title is a stroke of sheer bad luck, and both suffered injuries away from the track and not in the heat of competition. They are the losers of racing's daily game of Russian Roulette - exercising half a ton of horse on skinny legs and placing all that weight on hooves not much bigger than a man's fist.

It is important to remember that most of the excitement this week will be generated by the familiar old stalwarts such as Brave Inca, Hardy Eustace, Kauto Star and Beef or Salmon.

Each of these has had what could be described as a full, hard season and all have four or five proper races under their belt. They are the living proof that you can go to the watering trough more than once a season and still arrive ready to drink again on the big day in March.

Crucially they help build the fan base and following, and the importance of this was further amplified in the last week when some of the financial and structural problems that currently affect British National Hunt racing were again in the spotlight.

The management of Haydock Park announced it was downgrading its jump racing programme and replacing the historic fences which have made it an important steeple chasing venue for generations. The reason is simple - they can make a lot more money from bog-standard flat racing. Ginger McCain, Red Rum's trainer summed up what he thought of the decision fairly directly. "Haydock should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves, it's utterly disgusting, completely wrong. All Haydock seems interested in is the Friday night crew of yobbos."

The move follows a trend that started at courses such as Lingfield, Nottingham and Kempton. Although Kempton retains the prestigious King George chase at Christmas, its regular fare of all weather flat racing resembles little more than an afternoon greyhound meeting at Hackney, and its prime function is to augment computer generated horse races to provide a betting medium for off course bookmakers.

It'll be easy enough to overlook the depth of these long term problems next week when a quarter of a million people descend on Cheltenham to blow off all the winter stress and tension.

The medication will include 20,000 bottles of champagne, 30,000 bottles of wine, half a million pints of stout and lager and 10,000 gallons of tea and coffee. However, underneath the temporary euphoria is a trend towards clustering important jump racing at fewer tracks and with increasingly small fields as trainers try to protect their horses. It would make you mad just thinking about it.