Crunch time for mother-of-all festivals

AT last year’s Cheltenham Festival ‘credit crunch’ could well have been Howard Johnson’s likely outsider in the Triumph Hurdle.

However, it is a totally different world facing the Festival racegoer next week.

Unfortunately, credit crunch must now be one of the most familiar terms in the English language with the economic landscape vastly changed and the majority of the world now in the iron grip of recession.