CHELTENHAM 97/Festival review RATHER like being told your favourite Aunt has had a face lift, Cheltenham 97 has been the same lovable knees up it has always been, but different. Inescapably different.

The not so thin blue line meant sure escape was not possible. When the cheers that greeted the three Irish trained winners finally died away, it was the line of 14 police who sternly guarded the winners' enclosure through the three days that will stick in the memory. Until next year, when they will be back in place. For back in place they will be.

Danoli didn't win the Gold Cup and give the new security measures their ultimate test, but there was barely a sniff of the old raucous anarchy that sent hundreds spilling into the enclosure like an unstoppable force to bellow their approval of a Dawn Run or and Imperial Call.

Instead we got Ted Walsh on the greatest day of his racing life following Commanche Court's Triumph Hurdle success, worrying whether his wife and four children would be allowed into the holier than ever sanctum of the winners' enclosure.

We had Florida Pearl's trainer Willie Mullins anxiously surveying the 50 or so friends and supporters of the horse's owners and declaring: "I don't think they're going to allow all these people in."

Most laughably, we also had the sight of Ireland's champion trainer Aidan O'Brien vaulting over the rail of the enclosure to greet the winning Irish banker, of the meeting, Istabraq, and being enveloped by security men when he touched down. O'Brien may look like a youthful schoolboy, but surely some official could have been relied upon to know what the most successful trainer in Ireland looks like.

Of course, security had to be tightened up following last year's, "revelry" when Imperial Call stood engulfed in a sea of happy, if somewhat foolhardy, punters and Fergie Sutherland struggled to, reach him. Imperial Call stood almost monastically quiet: It was only a matter of time before another horse would go berserk and put a "reveller" in hospital.

There is also no doubt that the atmosphere changed as a result. Race fans can be an earthy bunch as a rule, but to hear boos ring out when one man was frog marched away by police after breaching the cordon to give Istabraq a grateful pat was still a shock.

Officially he had no right to be in there, but in previous years he would have been followed by hundreds. Different indeed. What hasn't changed, however, is Cheltenham's position as the focal point of an entire year.

More and more, the entire season is regarded as a gearing up process as the festival casts its omnipresent shadow ever wider. Whether that's good or bad is open to question. Certainly those who ran horses that are suited by cut in the ground should question it because success for such horses at Cheltenham is becoming increasingly rare.

Yet again the ground became the central player when trying to pick the winner and that makes such an important meeting too one dimensional. On the run up this year, the course watering was criticised in some quarters, but in truth not enough was put on.

For these special three days trainers shouldn't be embarrassed to demand truly good going on which no horse is going to come to harm. On a course with such good drainage, a similarly good watering system is necessary, but Cheltenham falls short of the mark. It currently takes two days to water the entire track, which the Jockeys Club may soon decide is too long.

A series of proposals which recommend that tracks must be able to sprinkle half an inch of water in 24 hours is being considered. Investing in grandstands is all well and good, but money spent on getting the track itself right should surely be a basic consideration.

Despite the ground, this festival proved yet again that jump racing at its best is still the most magnificent game in town.

If proof was needed, one only had to look at the high that everyone's favourite TV pundit Ted Walsh got from winning the Triumph Hurdle. Take away the quips and banter and Ted is a tough man who has prospered in a sport where knocks come every day and twice on a Saturday.

Yet Commanche Court's Triumph Hurdle was the realisation of a dream. Tears were unashamedly not far away as he cracked: "I'm an emotional oul git behind it all".

It was one of only three occasions when Irish throats could open fully, but to suggest that a three winner total is a disappointment says more about the over confidence that was widespread beforehand than the reality. The confidence which led to arguments about which of the Irish trio would win the Gold Cup smacked more of bullishness than of serious analysis.

Imperial Call was always going to find it difficult to recapture the heights of last year after his interrupted preparation, and while Danoli has proved time and again he is a remarkable race horse he is still just a novice. Maybe the seven winner jackpot of 1996 fuelled the unlikely dreams.

There was enough promise shown to suggest hope for the future. None more so than Dorans Pride's remarkable third in the Gold Cup. A horse with only six chase starts behind him, the last of them a heavy fall, and he jumped around Cheltenham like an old hand. That he did so on a surface that was for him akin to galloping for three and a quarter miles up the Naas dual carriageway made his placing all the more praiseworthy. Dorans Pride's best is still ahead of him.

Remarkably we have to believe that Tony McCoy's is too. That's a belief that beggars considering the man from Toomebridge, Co Antrim is already a champion at 22. Once Mr Mulligan stretched coming down the hill in the Gold Cup there was an almost eerie inevitability about him winning that only the very best riders can produce.

It was a sense born out of McCoy being on a roll after already winning the Champion Hurdle and the Arkle Trophy, but there was also a sureness of touch about him through the three days that indicated he is as comfortable when it really counts as during the run of the mill meetings that give him the championship. It's a sureness that will make his London Clubs Charity Trophy as leading rider of the meeting the first of many.

That is a cast iron bet because McCoy is now in harness with Martin Pipe, a trainer who proved once and for all he is not just an industrial producer of winners, but a trainer of genius who can prove his genius when the stakes are highest. Four winners comfortably made him the leading trainer at the festival, but it was the manner in which every one of Pipe's horses ran out of their skins which really impressed.

The massed stands testified to the growing popularity of the Cheltenham festival. A remarkable 143,774 people paid through the turnstiles during the three days and close to 60,000 attended on Gold Cup day, up 6,500 on last year.