Awesome Cheltenham: Nowhere else does a winner walk for seven minutes through uninterrupted applause

Plenty of people in this great sport have been at pains through the winter to point out that the whole season is not all about Cheltenham. Too much is made of the next four days, they say, and there are other significant ones.

They have highlighted Sandown, Kempton and Leopardstown and pointed towards the days to come at Aintree and Punchestown being of equal importance and that the next four days are not the be-all and end-all of anyone's year. Perhaps they are correct, and they have every right to believe so, only I'm afraid I have to disagree.

To capture the picture better, today at Cheltenham racecourse is like the Pro-Am day at one of golf's majors. On Monday morning, in the region of 100 Irish horses will exercise on the infield of Prestbury Park in front of BBC, SKY, RMG, ITV, and god knows who else's cameras.

Sponsors, competitors and media will mingle about the venue in a buzz of expectation that is not the calm before the storm. It's the first gusts of it, as the town and surrounding hostelries fill up with fans too excited to wait any longer.

Nothing happens on Monday, but the place doesn't feel that way, and the chatter of who, how and what will gather pace from dawn to dusk, but the darkness won't stop it.

The venue will be ready to accommodate 68,000 people per day for the next four days, and from daybreak on Tuesday, the droves of staff filing into the racecourse make it a hub of activity from the time you rise.

Queues will form before the gates open at 10am, touts will mingle buying and selling tickets before every inch of rail around the parade ring becomes occupied, every step on the grandstand filled and every position to view the parade ring taken. It feels like being inside Croke Park or Wembley, and 30 mins before the first everybody, except Willie Mullins, will be on-site waiting for the fun to begin.

The horses and riders will file out through the masses for each and every race all week, and after the traditional first-race roar, the cheering will be kept for the climax of each contest. It will rise and dip with the fortunes of what punters have latched onto, intensifying for a favourite in a championship race, waning when outsiders triumph late in the day.

But the noise created is unlike any other race day, and even the weakest reception outdoes every other day.

There is no other meeting in racing where a winner turns and walks for seven minutes through uninterrupted applause.

It starts with all those on the left in the Best Mate Enclosure before turning back down the hill past the packed grandstand and betting ring, turning left along the side of the Guinness Village and temporary stands.

Not even the Grand National winner will pass in front of or through as many spectators. Neither Royal Ascot victors nor Derby heroes will have the same walk. It is a lap of honour, and it's a walk that leads to a channel of people and into an enclosure built to house thousands.

There is no other meeting where every inch of that walk stays with you forever and no other place where the crowd can make the hair stand on the back of your neck.

It is the only meeting where those standing outside the parade ring wonder what it would be like to be inside it. There is nowhere else where connections get clapped onto a podium to receive their trophy in front of a rising sea of fans.

Other venues try, but none has captured the drama Cheltenham creates. I have never sat in any other weighroom and felt the disappointment this can place can bring or looked into the eyes of former colleagues and seen such deflation.

You don't see losers look as lost at other racecourses or witness trainers ambling off towards back gates or service exits in search of solidarity and time to think. For every winner here, there are many losers, and the dejection they try to hide has always shown me how much this place matters.

'Insufficient network coverage' is the top excuse for not answering calls. The professionals have mastered exit strategies, ducking away while a race is taking place and most eyes are turned the opposite way to the car park or sipping tea in the weighroom canteen, waiting for the cover of darkness to make their escape.

Will anyone remember every winner from here who won the King George or the Irish Gold Cup? Probably not. Will they remember who drew a blank here, even if they have dominated the other weeks of the year or bagged a major prize along the way? Yes, and they will think of those who they expect to succeed, and they are the ones, however successful they have been, who are feeling the heat right now.

It's not the pressure of performing that drains people coming to the Cheltenham Festival, it's the pressure of expectation. Performance can be controlled, but expectations can't, and as the hype grows year on year, so does that expectation.

So, whatever has been said this winter, in my opinion, how the next four days go matters more than the months that have passed.

As AP once told me: it's the pleasure of pressure you feel here. But it won't feel like a pleasure to many, right now. That pleasure will only come with the giant exhale of winning, the internal release before you even realise 68,000 people are clapping for your horse.

If that release doesn't come, the disappointment will linger far longer than the average weekend. The emotional rollercoaster and National Hunt racing are lucky to have something as awesome as Cheltenham to allow everyone a chance to get the thrill of their life.