Omar's Diary 10th March 2025

My sources within the intelligence services have reliably informed me that a town in the West Country of England will be invaded soon after dawn tomorrow.

This will not be an invasion instigated by a narrow minded, narcissistic, bigoted world leader; albeit democratically elected who simply wants to take the town over for its property development potential.

Instead, it will be an invasion coming in the ebbing and flowing waves of fifty thousand people a day. They will be wearing uniforms. Not military but the traditional uniform of the English, the Irish, Welsh, Scots and any other nationalities at play in the countryside. They will maintain national rivalries with friendly banter and respect. They won’t care where you come from culturally or which minority group that you identify with through choice or circumstances.

They will only care that everyone is included in enjoying the invasion to its fullest potential.

Brogues and tweeds rather than boots and camouflage gear. They will come in Rolls Royces, Bentleys, Range Rovers, SUVs, fifty two seater coaches, motorbikes, helicopters and trains. They will not arrive in Humvees, Abrams tanks, Bradley armoured vehicles or with air support from B52s, F15s or F16 Fighting Falcons.

Yes, the 2025 Cheltenham National Hunt Festival has arrived as a harbinger of the arrival of spring carrying the same message as daffodils, snowdrops and crocuses. Winter is almost over so let’s celebrate. Not with a Pagan ritual at a ring of ancient stones where the devotees wear Druid like costumes and repeated incantations to whatever gods they worshipped but in the natural amphitheatre that is Cheltenham racecourse where racing has been taking place for 210 years. A place where the worshippers do have incantations along the lines of ‘May my dead cert come in at one hundred to one’. ‘Hope my horse wins otherwise I have a lot of explaining to do with the missus when I get back to the house that used to be our home.’ ‘All I want to do is come away with more than I started with…even if its just a few quid’.

That is the qualitative intelligence so here is the quantitative.

The Festival starts on Tuesday 11th March 2025 and continues through to late Friday afternoon. There are seven races over each the four days during which the start times of 1320, 1400, 1440, 1520, 1600, 1640 and 1720 afford the avid punter twenty eight chances to have a tilt at the bookies and come away with nothing but the clothes they are standing in or ready cash to buy a new wardrobe.

At the time of writing, Monday 10th March 2025, there are five hundred and fifty declared runners. As each race approaches the number of declarations will go down. Horses may be withdrawn through injury, the state of the going or illness. Or because of sheer numbers. Each race has a specified limit to the runners that can start for safety reasons so the numbers will be reduced further at the overnight stage before the actual race.

Horses that run this week will be travelling from the four corners of the British Isles. I haven’t had the opportunity to study each day’s racing in detail yet so I am not confidently aware if any are coming from Europe yet.

The combined prize money for first place only over the four days is an eye watering £2.7 million with the highest value days on Tuesday and Friday.

There are no gilt edged or copper bottomed guarantees in horse racing which is why it has been described as a sport of 'glorious uncertainty'. Isn't that the attraction though? A dead cert can be leading but gets caught out by misplacing a stride approaching a fence. Or having found the depths of its stamina nearly all the way gets caught out by the cruelly rising ground on the last few yards to the finish line and glory in front of the stands by another horse with just that extra couple of litres of lung capacity to drag it across the line to victory.

I will restrict my self to four selections a day over the festival which will be published in subsequent editions of my diary. Just once, just once and as much as like that rogue of a turf accountant 'Ticker' I do hope that I will be collecting something from him this week.