To be honest, I don't really see what all the fuss is about. I know it's to do with commercialism and I know it's the one race of the year where millions more people are watching, but horses are still animals no matter how many people are watching them. And jockeys are still competitors who need to position their horses in the right places in case they're left standing.

People will wonder what difference it could possibly make where you are at the start of a four-and-a-half mile race. Well, it makes a massive difference when the ground is as good as it was last Saturday. If that had been soft ground, nobody would have been too worried how it was started because we'd all have been wanting to go off steady. But on good ground, with 40 horses, your position when you get to the first at Aintree is vital. The lad beside you might have a neck's lead on you because you didn't just get the kick at the start and if he jumps to his right going over the first, you could be goosed. You can't take the chance. You have to be where you have to be.

I've written here before about how, when you're preparing for the Grand National, you can only plan for the first fence and after that you have to improvise. Imagine how it is with 40 jockeys only being able to plan for that first fence. Imagine the determination of everyone down at that start to get themselves into the right place, to be ready when the tape goes up. You miss the jump in the Grand National on good ground and you may as well turn around and head back to the unsaddling enclosure. You're going to the first behind a wall of horses and you have no idea what's lying on the other side when you get there. You're finished before you even start.

And that's the cause of it all. There were 40 horses, 40 jockeys, everybody hot and bothered under a brutal sun that was drying out the ground almost as quick as they could water it. That's what I mean about it being almost impossible to start. Peter Haynes was very wrong to say that it was the fault of the Irish jockeys because that definitely was not the case but I have sympathy for him all the same. This race has been going 168 years and if there was an easy way to start it, somebody would have come up with it by now. It's only once a year and a 10-minute delay shouldn't really bother anyone all that much.

The season is coming to a close now and Punchestown this week is as good a way to round it off as you could dream of.

Some of the racing is absolutely top class, with the two big hurdle races of the week as good as anything anywhere all year. Mighty Man is coming over for the three-mile hurdle and it looks like Hardy Eustace and possibly even Brave Inca too will take him on. If that happens, I think Hardy will beat him because I'd be fairly confident of him staying and having too much speed for Mighty Man. He's a better horse, simple as that.

The reason Hardy and Brave Inca will probably go for the longer race is that there's no reason to think either of them should overturn the form with Sublimity in Friday's Champion Hurdle, after he was fair and square a quicker horse at a stiffer track in Cheltenham. Macs Joy is going to run in that race as well and they're two speedy horses that Punchestown will suit. That will be a fascinating race because if Brave Inca doesn't run in it, there'll be no pace in it and it'll be a tactical battle. Sublimity will take all the beating.

If Punjabi comes over, I'd say he'll win the four-year-old hurdle race on Thursday and Newmill should win the Kerrygold chase in Tuesday. As for me, I'll have a rake of Willie Mullins horses to ride through the week. Snowy Morning should have a great chance in the Grade One three-mile novice chase on Tuesday but I have a feeling Schindler's Hunt will get beaten by Gemini Lucy in the Swordlestown Cup on Thursday.