The first man I meet today in Cork airport is Jimmy Barry Murphy better known as JBM and a Cork GAA legend having won both hurling and football All-Irelands, twice mind as a player and just for the craic he trained the Cork hurlers to win Liam MacCarthy back in 1999.

The chat is all horses, greyhounds and GAA with Jimmy fancying Waterford at 8/1 for the hurling and Mayo at 8/1 for the football.

It’s a sign of things to follow for the week as it’s all about seeing old faces and catching up after our two-year hiatus.

I fly to Heathrow with my nephew Sean and bookmakers Berkie Browne and Spike Murphy where we hire the automobile and head up the M4 for the A419 to Cheltenham Town.

Our landlady in Charlton Kings, Christine, is looking mighty well and fair play to her, she tells us the price for the house is the same as when we stayed two years ago. Sure that’s a winner backed straight away after hearing of plenty of fellas not travelling to the Festival this year because of prices being hiked up for accommodation around the town.

I rock up to the media centre situated behind the weigh-room for 9am and already it’s a busy place.

Between photographers, journalists, TV personnel and social media people, there must be nearly 1,000 people accredited. It’s great to meet friends and colleagues that I haven’t seen in two years and it’s even better to be able to kiss the girls on the cheek.

From the moment they lined up for the Supreme, to the winner Constitution Hill being led back to the winner’s enclosure, I have to say the atmosphere was electric.

They go on about “the roar” at the start but there is nothing like “the roar” that’s comes from the stands when a favourite clears the final obstacle and races to the finish line.

Roll on two hours later and Honeysuckle and Rachael top it! Maybe it’s because we haven’t had crowds like today, nearly 69,000, for two years, but Holy God, this is hairs on the back of the neck stuff.

This is up there with the likes of Istabraq, Danoli and Imperial Call coming back into the number one spot. This is history and this horse is now a legend after her win. It’s her 15th straight success and she even passes out the great Frankel with this brilliant win.

Her groom Colman Comerford, owner Kenny Alexander and trainer Henry de Bromhead are living days with her that will never come around again and we are all thrilled for them.

And what about Rachael? She now resides in a minority group of people in our sport who are known by their first names. Lester, Frankie, AP, Ruby, Aidan, Willie and now we have Rachael.

She is a pure dote and she and Honeysuckle are now the biggest assets we have in our sport and please God we will witness many more days like today.

With both Stattler and Brazil making it three Irish wins on the card it’s a great day and I have to say Brazil’s success under Mark Walsh for owner J.P. McManus and trainer Paudie Roche will rank up there for popularity.

Everyone is thrilled for “The Milkey Bar” as Paudie is known, a son of Festival winning trainer Christy, Paudi led in Khayrawani and Like-A-Butterfly as a child here and you can bet your life there will be some party back in Kildare Town to celebrate.

What a day lads, on and off the pitch! In all my time coming here I have never worked conditions like it.

Constant rain all day made the job a pure hardship but I have to say come 11pm when I close the laptop, I was a proud man of the show myself and Sean put together.

With it being Cheltenham, you like to have three or four cracking images for your contracts of every race as opposed to an ordinary day’s racing where you could live on one.

Throw in the Tiger Roll retirement and we have pieced a great jigsaw together. After Tiger Roll finished second to stable mate Delta Work it was the weirdest 20 minutes on a racecourse.

For a few seconds I think people where just in a state of disbelief of what they had witnessed. Delta Work and Tiger Roll hadn’t gone two strides past the winning line and they were boos from the stands.

Photographing Davy Russell, he reminded me of Dublin goalie Paddy Cullen just staring into space after Kerryman Mikey Sheehy stuck that famous free into his net. Today it’s fellow Kerryman Jack Kennedy and Jack whispers to me on pulling up “God, I’m not popular Pat”.

Tiger Roll and Davy with grooms Mary Nugent and Karen Morgan were half-way down the walkway before they stopped to wait on Delta Work and Jack because of the booing!

In fairness, the reception for both horses was brilliant in the winner’s enclosure but Tiger getting chinned on the line does pull on the heart strings a bit.

I give a good mosey around the place this morning to see if we can pick up any tips for the Harvest Festival in six months’ time.

Every time you come here you see a new bar opened up or plenty more food wagons. Of course it’s a massive enclosure and I’m sure if you had three ex-girlfriends here, you would want to be lucky to run into any of them.

If by chance you do, then a trip to the See You Then Bar for a bottle of Moet will set you back £93 and a pint of Guinness is £7. The Pizza wagon has Ham & Pineapple pizza for £10 or you can have Fish & Chips next door for £12. A tea is £2.50 or a cappuccino £3.40.

On the track, we have three Irish winners and the celebrations that go with the success of Flooring Porter for a second Stayers’ Hurdle win will be shown on TV forever. Owned by The Flooring Porter Syndicate headed up by Ned Hogarty, Tommy and Alan Sweeney and Kerril Creaven, they probably had 30 friends with them all wearing black and white scarfs and they rocked the winner’s enclosure eventually carrying jockey Danny Mullins shoulder high making for great pictures.

Flooring Porter’s trainer Gavin Cromwell as ever was as cool as a cucumber and with wife Kiva alongside, it’s another great day for their Danestown Team.

Later on I am thrilled to capture jockey Johnny “Pinky” Burke ride his first Festival winner when steering Love Envoi home in the Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle.

There are two nice fellas in racing and “Pinky” is both of them. He is plying his trade over here a few years now and this breakthrough winner hopefully will kick him on.