IT¹S CHELTENHAM Gold Cup Week and for once the weather is forecast to be relatively quiet - unlike last year a day¹s racing was cancelled on account of high winds battering the course and the time a snowstorm held up the Gold Cup.

This time, if they¹re lucky, the thousands of racegoers who flock to the premier meeting of the jump racing calendar and who fill every available bed ­ and pub - in the area, will see the Cotswolds at their glorious spring best.

Down in the racecourse bowl, punters can look up to the glory that is Cleeve Hill - when they¹re not cheering on their favourite runners - or experience the joy of shopping in Cheltenham¹s elegant Promenade before racing begins.

Posh Cotswold voices and soft Gloucestershire vowels mingle with many other accents, mainly Irish. They particularly love the Festival and set the town alight when they have a winner ­ Cheltenham would be a duller place without its Irish visitors.

On the course and in the media speculation is rife. Will Denman regain his form enough to retain the totesport Gold Cup? Or will it be his great rival, stablemate Kauto Star, who won in 2007? Or maybe the Queen¹s horse, Barber¹s Shop? Everything is possible as those who watched open mouthed when a 100-1 horse called Norton¹s Coin ran away with jump racing¹s most prized trophy in the early 1990s will testify. And who will easily forget the glory days of the late, great Desert Orchid who won the 1989 Gold Cup by a whisker in pouring rain and, in racing parlance, bottomless ground?

The victories of the remarkable Best Mate are still fresh in the mind - his ashes are scatterered on the course - and more famous names ring down the years ­ Arkle, Golden Miller and the great Mill House.

One thing is certain - in jump racing there are no certainties.