The Christmas festivals are on the horizon but there’s plenty of good racing this weekend, and I’m really looking forward to riding Yorkhill on his chasing debut in the two-mile beginners’ race at Fairyhouse this afternoon.

Cheltenham chiefs admit the start of yesterday’s JLT Novices’ Chase “looked untidy” —but insist starting procedures had been followed correctly.

The Cheltenham Festival and St Patrick’s Day don’t always coincide on the calendar, but the organisers know a good thing when they see one. So it is that the third day of this four-day bonanza is always designated as ‘St Patrick’s Thursday’.

Although plenty of punters who got their fingers burnt on Blazer in last weekend’s Betfair Hurdle, at Newbury, it is far too soon to write off the beaten favourite.

It’s a big weekend for the Graham Wylie novices, with Bellshill and Yorkhill both in action in Grade One company, and Yorkhill plays his hand first, in this afternoon’s Tolworth Hurdle at Sandown.

With only one winning favourite on the seven-race programme, bookmakers got an early Christmas present at Thurles, where 20-1 chance Seabass turned back the clock when running away with the David O’Halloran Memorial Rated Novice Hurdle in the hands of Katie Walsh.

In-form Luke Dempsey again proved his star quality when partnering Thunder Zone, the outsider of just three runners, in the CIT race Week Hurdle on Student Race Day in Cork yesterday.