As he points out, it wasn't as melodramatic as it sounds - after all, no Wolves fan celebrating the club's third title in six years back in 1959 could have conceived of that being his lot for eternity. The ground is very hard to see from the top of the mountain, all the more so when you're of no mind to look for it.

For two years in a row now, the Irish have gone to Cheltenham and made out like bandits. There had never been nine winners at a festival before 2005, never 10 before last year. There's something about us though, even in these times of plenty both in and beyond the sport, that just can't help looking down. This time last year, trainers and jockeys and pundits fell over each other warning us not to expect a repeat performance. The cards that had fallen our way would be dealt differently; the English handicapper had collared the Irish challengers; injury and age had taken their toll in all the big races bar the Champion Hurdle.

And even though it made no difference, even though War Of Attrition took Kicking King's place and Newmill took Moscow Flyer's, even though Dun Doire and Sky's The Limit and Native Jack and Kadoun all managed to cock a snook at the handicapper, we've been given our warning again.

Don't expect, don't get carried away.

Don't entertain the idea of coming home with another 10.

There are reasons, of course. Solid ones. The drip-drip of withdrawals and bad tidings can drain the life from your anticipation like a slow puncture. Even in just the last 10 days, one home hope after another has fallen by the wayside, picked off by small niggles and overheated legs and concerns over the likely ground. The last two Champion Hurdle runners up, Macs Joy and Harchibald, went from the race on Friday. Adrian Maguire's Celestial Wave came out of the World Hurdle during the week. In Compliance and War Of Attrition were lost to the Gold Cup last weekend. Far from certs any of them but near the business end of their markets nonetheless.

And now they're staying in their box for the week.

(Incidentally, does not the fact that for the second year in a row the Gold Cup winner has failed to make it back for his defence say something for Henrietta Knight's borderline paranoia when she was wet-nursing Best Mate to his three-ina-row? And should not the gobby types who scoffed and scolded her for hiding him away back in those days hold their hands up now and admit that the doughty little schoolteacher knew at least a little something of what she was about? Just saying. ) And if we haven't been talking dropouts, we've been fretting over dropoffs. Every preview night has binned the notion that there's anything worth spending time on among the Irish novice chasers. Jessica Harrington's Gemini Lucy might run into a place in the Arkle and the Charles Byrnes mare Cailin Alainn could be the best of what's left after Denman is finished toying with the Sun Alliance field but that's about the height of it.

Every sure thing across the week is English. Denman, Kauto Star and Well Chief only have to stay standing to win. Those who say the same about Aran Concerto and Lounaos are matched and more by those willing to take them both on. Much more of this and we'll start allowing the thought that the number of races won by Irish jockeys will dip into single figures.

Crazy talk.

Enough, we say. Sometimes, you've got to be that Wolves fan enjoying the success, blissfully unaware of what lies ahead. So what if the tricolour isn't flown after every race this week?

It won't change the rude health the sport is in in Ireland. It won't suddenly make everything that was written and said in the aftermath of the past two festivals obsolete. Cheltenham was always the annual banquet that sustained the game here during some wretchedly bad times; it's just a little bit Irish to be wringing our hands over it now that times are good.

And anyway, the beauty of it has always been that you never know.

There isn't a person in the country who could make a strong case for Beef Or Salmon winning the Gold Cup this year but you never know. Even Kay Hourigan would be hard pushed to convince the sceptics in this, his fifth attempt but look, you never know.

He's failed miserably at Cheltenham so many times now that to even consider he could do something feels foolish and self defeating. But ponder a moment on this - unless a flood of money comes for Tom Taaffe's Cane Brake between now and Friday, Beef Or Salmon will go off the shortestpriced Irish horse in the Gold Cup for the fourth time in five years. For all his foibles and frailties, some folk somewhere keep backing him. At this point, perhaps, they're not really backing him so much as they're backing never knowing. Take that away and Cheltenham would wilt away with it.

It's the never knowing that will prevent Kauto Star going off at odds on for the Gold Cup. Across the page, Ruby Walsh makes a forceful case for the horse and yet it's amazing how few people are willing to take his word for it. Sometimes racing folk can be a cussed breed. Here's a horse that has destroyed four of the five fields he's faced this season, who practically everybody agrees is the most talented animal in training and yet every day you hear him described as someone's lay of the meeting.

All because he's hit a few fences along the way and hasn't yet run a race over three miles. Never mind that the first time he ran over three, he won by 17 lengths without Walsh having to use his whip even once. Never mind the next time he did it, he took the King George by the longest winning distance in nearly a decade ahead of Exotic Dancer, the second horse in the Gold Cup market. Never mind that neither War Of Attrition nor Kicking King are there. And never mind that for all his occasional untidiness, he hasn't sent Walsh to the floor once all season. They still say he's ripe for the picking off.

Does the same go for Well Chief in the Queen Mother? And if not, should it not? There's little doubt that if John J Murphy's name was Willie Mullins or Noel Meade, Newmill would be accorded a great deal more respect than he is for a defending champion. He's done nothing but impress since his 16-1 win last year and yet he trails in the betting behind a horse that has had one run in two years. As stunning a return as Well Chief 's was at Newbury, you have to wonder if people are betting according to their misty eyes.

And once again, the most anticipated race of the festival is the Champion Hurdle on Tuesday. It's hard to escape the feeling of an era approaching its end, given that with the best will in the world, Hardy Eustace and Detroit City will hardly be in the same class next year. Brave Inca has a year on Dessie Hughes's horse and so just might put it up to the grey next March but if Detroit City keeps improving, he could be out of sight by then.

So this year it is. The two best hurdlers of a golden age up against a young pretender with the capacity to be better than either of them ever were. If the Cheltenham gods were to grant one wish, it would be for these three to take the final flight as one and let the hill sort them out.

Elsewhere, the ground has played havoc with the entries for the handicaps so there's little point ruminating on them other than to say there's been some fairly strident talk about New Field, so keep an eye out for whichever race Tom Mullins settles on for him. And the bumper is as inscrutable as ever, with Tot O'Whiskey a good thing each way at a decent price.

But as always, these things are unknown and unknowable at this remove. That's what keeps us coming back.