Some of the fences are in strange places, halfway down a hill, on a corner, things like that. But that's part of what makes Cheltenham Cheltenham. You fall in love with its imperfections.

The thing I'd say a lot of people might not know about Cheltenham is that during the festival we race on two different tracks, the old course on Tuesday and Wednesday, the new one on Thursday and Friday. There's a big difference between them too. Once you get to Cleve Hill on the old course, you turn downhill for home and you're soon into the straight with just one fence ahead of you. On the new course, however, you continue on up the hill and around the top of it for a furlong before turning in down the side of the hill. What that does is leave you with a longer straight with an extra fence in it.

And it makes a difference. If the Gold Cup was held on the old course, a lot more horses would have got the trip. People say it's the hill that gets the horses in the end at Cheltenham but a lot of the time it's what's been taken out of them during the trip. Once you hit the rising ground on the new track, you have an extra furlong and a half to go than if you were on the old one. That's when the famous hill really comes into play.